ShowYou Launches Subscription Service Led By Above Average, Indieflix

There’s a new service available for content creators who wish to sell their videos behind a paywall. ShowYou, which initially launched as a tool for aggregating videos across social media networks, is now giving content creators the opportunity to build subscription-based, pay-to-view channels for their biggest fans.

The new service is an extension of ShowYou’s curated video pages, which it launched last year. Essentially, ShowYou allows content creators to create their own channels, and the site’s users then look through the complete library and subscribe to the channels that interest them. This creates a feed of handpicked videos customized to each user’s interests. The site’s most popular channels, such as CollegeHumor, IFC, and the MLS, often come from established brands.

The new subscription-based service, in hopes of addressing the desire for more profitable revenue streams in the online video industry, allows channel creators to set a price for their subscriptions. “We’re a small startup that makes a living and a service for the Internet,” ShowYou Founder Mark Hall told Tubefilter.

The first two channels to utilize ShowYou’s paid subscriptions are Above Average

and Indieflix. Above Average can potentially use the new platform to offer exclusive windows for videos that will later appear on its YouTube channel. Indieflix, on the other hand, has placed its entire collection of films behind ShowYou’s paywall. According to Hall, the “number one selling point” of ShowYou’s new service is the ad-free experience its offers.

This idea–a subscription-based service that provides a premium experience for fans who are willing to shell out a couple bucks–is far from now; other sites, such as Yekra, VHX, and Vimeo On Demand, offer similar products. Hall explains that ShowYou is different because it is focused on channels rather than a la carte videos. Hall also noted that “the people using our service will be quite different” from those who use some other subscription-based platforms, in that they will be “channel owners” rather than “filmmakers.”

ShowYou’s channels are arranged in a neatly-organized store, so go there if you’re interested in shopping through the site’s offerings. For more information on the new service, check out ShowYou’s blog.