YouTube Prepares to Launch Scheduled Channels

Will consumers put down the remote and tune into YouTube? The Google-owned site is getting closer to finding out.

The video giant is finalizing contracts for its first of more than a dozen "channels" featuring regularly scheduled content on big broad themes such as fashion and sports, according to people familiar with the matter. YouTube has requested some content for the channels within the next 60 days, according to one of these people, as it considers a launch in early 2012. YouTube, which media companies have long griped is too stingy cutting content deals, is paying from a few hundred thousand dollars to several million to content creators to create and curate videos for a channel, according to these people. Google recoups the original payment through ad revenue, and Google and the partner share ad revenue after that. Content owners in talks with the company say Google executives say they want to build a comprehensive video service that users will want to tune into instead of television, not just a service to better compete with other Web video sites.