all kinds of series now free to watch

Netflix may find that its massive growth has stalled, but YouTube is also struggling to keep viewers engaged as more streaming services emerge. A new advantage of YouTube is the addition of a large number of TV series and shows that you can watch for free but have ads in between.

Streaming service competition

It’s YouTube’s way of capitalizing on a trend we’re seeing across multiple streaming services. For example, HBO Max in America has a subscription where you pay less, but you can see ads. Disney+ was also considering offering a similar deal. YouTube takes a slightly different approach, as it wants to entice non-subscribers by letting you watch it completely free, in exchange for having to put up with ads.

Since a regular YouTube video is often already loaded with ads, it will likely become a big commercial block that plays between series. Still, it might be worth it, if you’re a fan of shows like Hell’s Kitchen, Heartland, or Scream Queens, for example. These are two of the series that YouTube will soon offer for free, in exchange for an as yet unknown number of commercial expressions.

Free movies on YouTube

YouTube primarily wants people to understand that you can also view the video service on, say, your TV, so it can take more of the position of an old-fashioned TV subscription (and become more a competitor to streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Amazon Prime Video). . By the way, that’s not entirely new to YouTube: it’s been streaming movies on the platform since 2018 (including Jessica’s Room and Frank). Completely free, but you have to watch ads if you want to continue watching your movie.

Although YouTube videos are often much longer than the average TikTok video, YouTube still maintains the image of relatively short videos. For example, you can watch Hunting Season and that’s also done a lot, but that format is also relatively short at 30 minutes. By preparing entire series for binging, YouTube hopes a little more to also get an image of an entertainment service that people watch longer.

Stream series to your TV

YouTube says it has already added 4,000 series episodes, with 100 more coming every week. At the moment, we cannot consider them in this way in the Netherlands. Unfortunately, that won’t change any time soon. Google informs us that the new feature is only available in the United States and there are no plans to roll it out to other countries.