ESPN videos forced off Youtube by new subscription service policy

YouTube on Wednesday unveiled its long-discussed paid subscription service. Dubbed YouTube Red, the new service will offer ad-free versions of all current YouTube videos, as well as access to music streaming and additional exclusive content from some of the site's top creators. It will cost $9.99 per month and launch on Oct. 28. With YouTube Red, subscribers will be able to save YouTube videos for offline play, listen to videos in the background while browsing other mobile apps and watch all videos without ads. Youtube has grown into an advertising behemoth, pulling in a reported $4 billion in revenue in 2014. However, YouTube still isn't profitable, so a subscription play could make sense as a way of improving Google's bottom line.

But where we consumers have the freedom of choice to stay with a free version of YouTube or upgrade to a paid subscription for it, YouTube Creators have seemingly been left without that same choice. It appears that YouTube played a heavy hand in pushing Creators to join the company behind their Red paywall. If a Creator chooses to continue on their own without joining the Red bandwagon, YouTube will mark their videos as "private" and will only be viewable to the Creators themselves. In short, Creators not on Red will also not be on a public YouTube. And the first notable victim is ESPN.

The majority of ESPN's video content has been pulled off of YouTube in the US, as the sports network currently can't participate in the YouTube Red service due to rights issues surrounding its content. Out of ESPN's 13 featured channels - including Grantland, SportsNation, ESPNU and others - only two still have videos, notes Mashable: X Games and NacionESPN. Some channels simply have messages reading, "This channel has no content," while over on the main ESPN channel, the most recent videos are from three years ago.