YouTube is stepping up its efforts to sell you other streaming services

YouTube is preparing a big redesign of its TV app that will make it look more like Netflix, according to a report from The Information. The new design, which is expected to launch “in the next few months,” will reportedly display paid content from various streaming services on the homepage. YouTube currently lets you explore shows and movies from services like Paramount Plus, Max, and Crunchyroll as part of the Primetime Channels feature it rolled out in 2022. Similar to the setup on Amazon’s Prime Video, you can select and subscribe to these third-party services through YouTube, all while the platform gets a cut of the payment. However, you can only access this content through the Movies and TV tab of the YouTube app, which The Information says makes it harder for users to find. YouTube also reportedly stopped adding new services to its Primetime offering as it struggled with integrating paid content into its homepage. But now, the company aims to solve this by putting paid subscriptions on the app’s homepage. It will also give creators the ability to display their videos in seasons – something it announced it would start letting creators do on their channels – as well as play previews of shows automatically, The Information reports. “The vision is that when you come to our [TV] app and you’re looking for a show, it’ll just blend away whether that show is from a Primetime Channel or that show is from a creator,” Kurt Wilms, YouTube’s senior director of product management, told The Information. The company has made some notable design tweaks to its TV app over the past year, and announced last month that TVs have become the “primary device” people use to watch YouTube.