Google overhauling YouTube?

According to a report in the Wall St. Journal on Wednesday, Google has big changes in mind for their YouTube website. They want YouTube to be better prepared for the increasing amount of televisions that are connected to the internet, according to people who are familiar with the situation.

So, YouTube is apparently going to reorganize their homepage and focus it more on different “channels” like sports or music or whatever.

What I found interesting was the part about how YouTube would be offering “premium channels,” with five to ten hours or so of professionally produced, original content. I find that intriguing because there were stories recently about Google becoming a media company that produced its own content. They tried to downplay it, but it sounds like this is exactly what people were talking about.

But, all of these changes will cost YouTube about $100 million, which probably isn’t all that much considering Google owns them. Look for the changes to be phased in by the end of the year.