One month ago, YouTube announced a big international expansion of its subscription service, YouTube Premium. Now, the video site is taking the natural next step. After announcing a star-studded fall programming slate for YouTube Premium, YouTube global head of original programming Susanne Daniels (pictured above) noted that her team was working to launch premium content in Germany, Japan, Mexico, France, and India.
Some of the original programs YouTube will release via YouTube Premium, which costs $11.99 in the US, while others will be supported by ads on the basic version of the video site. This strategy mirrors the one YouTube has employed domestically; some US originals are released behind the Premium paywall, while others are made available for free.
Naturally, the international originals will cater to the viewers within their native regions. The first YouTube Premium series from outside the US, for example, was Run, BIGBANG Scout!, which appealed to a South Korean audience and featured one of the East Asian nation’s top K-pop groups.
Subscribe to get the latest creator news
For services like YouTube Premium, creating international original programs is a good idea because it opens up the pool of potential subscribers to a higher percentage of the world’s population. At this point, most of Netflix’s subscriber growth is happening in non-US regions, owing to that SVOD platform’s deep saturation within the US market and the large number of original programs it has launched in territories across the globe.
YouTube is particularly well-equipped for international expansion since it can offer its YouTube Go app to viewers in developing nations. The app, which arrived in India last year, offers a number of features that help users control bandwidth use and maximize internet connectivity.
The nature of the original programs YouTube will launch in Germany, Japan, Mexico, France, and India are not yet known, nor are their release dates
