Google is reportedly getting ready to announce a new subscription service for some of the specialized channels on YouTube, a move that will allow it to finance a much wider range of content and add a second source of revenue to the world’s No.1 video website.

The Financial Times is reporting that Google may announce its new service later this week. It’s basing its claims on an email sent to it from a source inside YouTube, which states that its ” looking into creating a subscription platform that could bring even more great content to YouTube for our users to enjoy and provide our creators with another vehicle to generate revenue from their content, beyond the rental and ad-supported models we offer.”

There have been some rumors that Google might try to move some of YouTube’s premium content onto a subscription model before. Although YouTube is mostly known for its ad-sponsored free content, it also offers a range of ‘specialized’ premium channels that need to be paid for. In a few select countries, Google has already offered its partners the chance to promote paid YouTube content. In them, viewers can rent ad-free content for a designated period of time.

According to the FT’s source, YouTube’s new subscription model would apply to about 50 channels to begin with. Viewers will be $1.99 a month, though the source didn’t specify if that price was for just one channel, or a number of channels. However, we should note that this is just a rumour – when asked for a comment by the FT, all YouTube would say is that it has “nothing to announce at this time”.

If it does launch a subscription-based service for YouTube, Google would be heading into direct competition with services like Netflix, Amazon’s Lovefilm and Hulu, which all offer different kinds of video streaming content on a subscription basis. One would imagine that Google will have a tough time taking viewers away from Netflix though, given that it now counts something like 36 million users in over 40 countries where its available.

One thing Google does have on its side however, is a massive user base with YouTube counting some one billion unique monthly viewers during the last month, though how many of these would be prepared to pay for content remains to be seen.