Google has conceded failure in its attempts to monetise video downloads and ended its 19-month experiment to offer paid programming, reports the Washington Post.
Google has been offering a range of video on a download-to-rent or download-to-own basis since January 2006, with titles ranging from US $2 to $20 and viewable only through a downloadable player.
Google’s decision to close the retail part of its video site indicates the company had less success selling content than attracting advertising spending, which accounts for 99 percent of revenue, said the New York Times.
“The current change is a reaffirmation of our commitment to building our ad-supported monetization models for video,” Google spokesman Gabriel Stricker said in an e-mail to Bloomberg.
Visitors to Google’s sites watched 1.8 billion clips in May, accounting for 22% of videos viewed in the U.S., according to online measurement firm ComScore. However, the vast majority of these were via YouTube.
