Users in the United States will be able to view films from the 2009 and 2010 Sundance Film Festival on YouTube from tomorrow until Sunday, January 31

The Sundance Festival gives independent filmmakers a chance to show their work. Only a handful of the films showed at the festival are offered distribution deals which means we never see them. YouTube will now give these filmmakers a way of promoting their products and giving us a chance to view these films.

YouTube will charge viewers $3.99 (£2.50) each to view films over a 48-hour period. This will be a big boost for their revenue and an end to many discussions over paid-for feature films. Since Google bought the site in 2006 it has struggled to make a profit despite being the most popular video sharing site and reportedly serving over one billion views per day in September according to CEO Chad Hurley.

Mike McGuire of Gartner Research said ‘this is a huge move for YouTube in the sense of them trying to monetize the site’ and that ‘this certainly opens doors for them with bigger studios’. This means YouTube will be competing with services such as Apple’s ITunes, Microsoft’s Xbox Live and Amazon offering pay-per-view films.
A recent YouTube blog post revealed that “in the coming weeks we’ll also invite a small group of partners across other industries, in addition to independent film, to participate in this new option.” which means the company will have to win over studios that are currently opting to put their content on Hulu, a joint venture between Walt Disney and NBC Universal News Corporation.
YouTube will make five films from the Sundance festival available for rental and said a small collection of rental videos from other U.S partners will also be made available for rental in the coming weeks.