Technology, Online Video | featured news

Roger Corman's campy B movies, children's shows like "Sesame Street" and "Inspector Gadget," and inspirational monologues by celebrities — these are among the 30 channels that will require a paid monthly subscription on YouTube coming soon.

The Web site this week is expected to announce a plan to let some video makers charge a monthly subscription, according to people with knowledge of the plan.

With more than one billion unique visitors every month, YouTube asserted last night that the battle between television and the online video giant is over. YouTube claimed victory with six billion views per month. According to the Wall Street Journal, which cited Mark Mahaney's estimates, a stock analyst at RBC Capital Markets,  that YouTube generated about $4 billion in revenue in 2012, up from $2.5 billion in 2011.

The Internet company signed a deal for exclusive streaming rights to past episodes of “Saturday Night Live” to gain an edge in a small market for digital video advertising.

YouTube has once again beaten Viacom in the long-running copyright case that the companies have spent the last several years fighting. This marks the second time U.S. District Judge Louis Stanton has taken YouTube’s side in the case, agreeing that the streaming video provider was protected by “safe harbor” provisions of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

Fourteen pilot shows - including Alpha House and Zombieland - are to be put to the public vote on Lovefilm and Amazon.com. Viewers can submit feedback influencing which shows get made into full series. The 14 shows are made by independent production companies and produced by Amazon Studios, the film and series production arm of Amazon.

Former News Corp president Peter Chernin bid around $500 million for Hulu, the online video streaming service he helped create in 2007, according to two sources with knowledge of Hulu's sale process.

Yahoo is in talks to buy a controlling stake in online-video site Dailymotion, in what would be Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's first major acquisition.

If you feel like you haven’t seen Julia Stiles on screen lately, you may just be looking for her in the wrong places—or rather on the wrong screen. Stiles is currently starring in the YouTube series “Blue,” which returned for a second season on March 15.

Disney and News Corp. have begun discussions about resolving uncertainty over online video site Hulu, with one possible outcome being that one or the other sells their stake.