Thaindian News

New York, Apr 27 (THAINDIAN NEWS) Competition to Netflix, choice to consumers! Google’s video arm, Youtube is gearing up to offer a movie rental service very soon much to the dismay of movie streaming sites like Netflix and large players in paid video streaming like Apple iTunes.

Youtube has already got in touch with major studios and formed business partnerships to license movies for its upcoming service. Sony Pictures Entertainment, Warner Brothers, Lionsgate and Universal have agreed to license movies to Youtube for streaming. However, other studios like Paramount, Fox and Disney have denied licensing their content to Youtube.

After the story of Youtube rentals spread on the internet, Youtube spokesperson said, “We’ve steadily been adding more and more titles since launching movies for rent on YouTube over a year ago, and now have thousands of titles available. Outside of that, we don’t comment on rumor or speculation.”

It is speculated that Youtube nay start the movie streaming as early as this week or the next. However, it is not immediately clear on if it would charge its viewers for mainstream movie streaming or not. Some sources on the internet speculate on the new service to be low charge rental service with some fixing the charge at $2.99 per rental.

Meanwhile, Netflix has reported impressive first quarter earnings. “We were thrilled to add 3.3 million domestic subscribers in Q1, nearly double the number added in Q1 of 2010. The virtuous cycle we’ve mentioned previously of increased investment in streaming content, strong word of mouth and an expanding device ecosystem truly worked for us in the quarter,” Netflix chief executive Reed Hastings said in a letter to shareholders.