Google is slowly but surely building out its movie rental service on YouTube. Less than two weeks ago, the company struck a deal with Paramount to bring about 500 of the studio’s movies to YouTube and Google Play. Last night, Google announced that is also bringing about 600 movies from MGM to its movie rental service in the U.S. and Canada. This new deal with MGM brings movies like The Terminator, RoboCop, Rain Man and Rocky to YouTube’s and Google Play’s rental library.
Google promises to add more MGM titles to its catalog “in the weeks ahead.” It’s not clear if this deal just focuses on older movies, though, or if more recent MGM titles like Hot Tub Time Machine will also be included in the YouTube rental catalog.
Google now has deals with five of the six major U.S. studios, as well as deals with more than ten independent studios. The only major holdout at this point is Fox. MGM currently also has streaming deals with most of the major players in the market, including Netflix, Apple and Amazon.
Overall, this looks like a good addition to YouTube’s and Google Play’s catalog. Viewers, after all, rate streaming services based on the availability of the movies they want to see. As a newcomer in this market, Google still has some catching up to do, but its slowly becoming competitive.