00:00 Here's your Forbes Daily Briefing for Saturday, February 3rd.
00:05 Today on Forbes, YouTube's premium and music paid services hit 100 million subscribers.
00:14 YouTube on Thursday announced a key milestone for YouTube Premium and Music, the Google-owned
00:19 company's paid services for ad-free access and music streaming.
00:23 The number?
00:24 A combined 100 million subscribers.
00:27 The new subscriber figure is still small compared to YouTube's overall user base of 2.5 billion
00:33 people.
00:34 But YouTube CEO Neil Moen told Forbes that the site's subscription business is part of
00:40 a "twin-engine growth plan" with its advertising business.
00:45 He said, "We obviously are an ad-supported business, but we have also worked very hard
00:50 to build up a subscription business, and that is a meaningful part of our business at this
00:54 point."
00:56 Hitting the triple-digit millions means the company's subscription business is slowly
01:00 catching up to a number of well-established rivals.
01:03 Amazon Prime, arguably the gold standard of digital subscription bundles, reportedly had
01:09 more than 200 million subscribers last year, while Spotify Premium, another ad-free service,
01:15 has 226 million subscribers.
01:18 "YouTube Premium's 100 million subscribers also includes people currently on one-month
01:23 free trials," the company said.
01:25 Though YouTube declined to say how many.
01:29 The $13.99 per month Premium service, which first debuted in 2015, includes access to
01:35 YouTube Music Premium, which costs $10.99 per month on its own, and special features
01:40 like the ability to download videos for offline viewing.
01:45 Premium users also get access to early or experimental YouTube features, like an artificial
01:49 intelligence tool the company tested last year that uses generative AI to let people
01:54 ask questions about a video.
01:58 YouTube Music, which has a paid ad-free counterpart, was released as a part of YouTube Premium
02:03 nine years ago to compete with streaming giant Spotify and then upstart Apple Music.
02:09 Three years later, YouTube allowed people to subscribe to YouTube Music Premium on its
02:13 own, separate from the company's larger Premium package.
02:17 On an earnings call earlier this week, Alphabet CEO Sundar Pichai said that Google's pool
02:23 of subscription services generated combined revenue of $15 billion last year.
02:28 That includes YouTube Premium and Music, YouTube TV, a cable alternative that includes a lucrative
02:34 NFL Sunday ticket add-on for streaming access to football games, and Google One, a subscription
02:40 plan for extra storage for Google apps like Gmail and Drive.
02:45 On the earnings call, Pichai said, "YouTube is the key driver of our subscription revenues.
02:51 YouTube Music and Premium have real momentum."
02:55 It's unclear how much revenue Premium and Music generate per year, since, as we said,
03:00 that $100 million figure includes free trials and Moen declined to provide further detail.
03:06 Outside of subscriptions, YouTube generated $9.2 billion in the fourth quarter, up 15.5%
03:12 year over year.
03:15 YouTube has worked hard to boost its numbers.
03:17 The company aggressively markets the service with a pop-up ad at the corner of watch pages,
03:22 sometimes partially obscuring the video screen and title, offering a month-long free trial.
03:27 The ads are so prevalent that they've become a meme.
03:31 One of them mocks the persistent pop-up as "harassment."
03:35 Another shows Jim Carrey's Dumb and Dumber character Lloyd Christmas uttering his famously
03:39 clueless line, "So you're telling me there's a chance?"
03:44 The subscription milestone comes as the advertising business model many big platforms depend on
03:50 continues to draw scrutiny.
03:52 Google is expected to face a massive antitrust trial later this year, targeting the company's
03:56 ad tech, and whether or not the search giant elbowed out competition with its services
04:01 for ad auctions.
04:03 The advertising model has also been blamed for inflaming the modern internet's biggest
04:07 woes, pushing a system where eyeballs and clicks lead to revenue, incentivizing extremist
04:12 content and misinformation.
04:16 For full coverage, check out Richard Nieves' piece on Forbes.com.
04:21 This is Kieran Meadows from Forbes.
04:23 Thanks for tuning in.
04:24 [MUSIC PLAYING]
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