YouTube may offer premium movie rentals

YouTube, the huge video-sharing unit of Google (GOOG), has a 42 percent share of all videos watched in the U.S., according to comScore. Last month that was almost 9 billion pieces of content. It may be a huge number, but most analysts think YouTube still loses money because it cannot bring in enough revenue from advertisers to cover costs.

Marketers have stayed away from YouTube primarily because its content, mostly created by users, is idiosyncratic and often vulgar. The resolution of the video is also usually low.