YouTube is moving ahead with its plan to offered a paid subscription service that would allow viewers to skip the pre-roll ads, YouTube senior vice president Susan Wojcicki said last night.
The option is "near term," Wojcicki said during Monday's Code Mobile conference in California, according to The Wall Street Journal.
"There are going to be cases where people are going to say, 'I don't want to see ads,'" according to Wojcicki, who took over as YouTube's top exec in February.
Last year, YouTube launched paid channels as part of a new pilot program that gave content creators a new way to earn revenue from their videos. That expanded in October, but as the Journal pointed out, there is currently no option for YouTube users to subscribe to a premium service that eliminates all ads.
YouTube hasn't nailed down exactly what its paid option will look like. "We're thinking about how to give users options," she said.
There have also been reports of a YouTube Music Key service that would offer audio-only playback and offline access, as well as Google Play Music All Access, for $9.99 a month—similar to offerings from Spotify, Slacker, and Rdio.
The music-based function is still under development, but Wojcicki remains "optimistic about seeing it soon," the Journal said.
YouTube did not immediately respond to PCMag's request for comment.
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