YouTube has launched on Thursday its paid subscription service, with an initial 30 content creators included in the list. These paid channels included Comedy.TV, Baby First Plus, Jim Henson Family TV, Ultimate Fighting Championship and PGA Digital Golf Academy, among others.

Subscription rates vary per channel, beginning at US$0.99 a month. The Laugh Factory and Henson, for instance, each charge $US2.99 for clips of stand-up comedy routines as well as for full length episodes of "Sid The Science Kid" and "Fraggle Rock," respectively. The PGA Golf Academy, meantime, will charge subscribers $US4.99 a month for golf lessons.

Every channel will offer a 14-day free trial, and many will offer discounted yearly rates, YouTube said.

Only a few recognisable names, however, were part of the YouTube announcement. "As new channels appear, we'll be making sure you can discover them, just as we've been helping you find and subscribe to all the channels you love across YouTube," the site said.

Moreover, it is not at YouTube's discretion to make the call whether a paid channel has ads or not. "The partners are smarter about their audience and their content than we are," Malik Ducard, YouTube's head of content partnerships, was quoted by Ad Age.

Essentially, subscriptions will help pour in added revenue stream for some of the creators, which will then be later split as 55 per cent going to the creator and 45 per cent to YouTube.

The channels are accessible as along as a subscriber has access to a desktop computer, phone, tablet and TV, YouTube said.

"We look forward to seeing how this great community of creators moves ahead to reach their fan communities," Mr Ducard said.

"Consumers have gotten used to getting their content on the web," Laura Martin, senior analyst with Needham and Co, said. "The question is whether they will pay for it."

Read more:

Watching Videos on YouTube Will Now Be Charged