You Tube weighs funding efforts for premium content

The talks underscore Google Inc’s desire to complete YouTube’s transition from a repository for grainy home videos to a site sporting the more polished content crucial to securing higher-priced advertising. Over the past two months, YouTube executives have begun making the rounds, talking to Hollywood producers to explore the kinds of support it could offer its content creators and produce more must-see programming, according to the two people. Executives did not lay out exactly how a program would be structured. One of the two people said the site may offer between $1 million and $3 million to produce a series of programs, and might contribute marketing funds as well. The second person said the site was interested in videos shorter than the 30-minute, TV network-quality Web shows that Amazon.com Inc and other online sites have recently funded. “We are always exploring various content and marketing ideas to support and accelerate our creators,” a YouTube representative said in an email. The site declined to comment on the meetings. The latest round of discussions is in its initial phases and actual measures may never materialize, the sources said. YouTube is by far the world’s most popular location for video streaming, with more than 1 billion unique visitors a month, far surpassing Netflix Inc and Amazon. But it is trying to lure more marketers for premium video advertising, boosting margins as overall prices for Google’