For the past year and a half, Youtube has been pushing towards creating more original content and turning the site into a media outlet. With a new channel sponsorship ad model on the cards, the company is experimenting with different ways of generating revenue and is now incorporating paid options into its live streaming service.

As part of YouTube Live’s one year anniversary, Youtube is now allowing its live users to monetize their live events through either advertising or pay-per-view. Announcing it on their publisher blog, users can generate revenue either through instream ads or paid options where you can set the price by country. Youtube didn’t reveal how much of a cut it will get from any revenue earned from pay-per-view content.

Both options combined with the large userbase could make the move attractive to sporting and entertainment events, the latter included already with Youtube Live covering four major music festivals over the summer. Other new additions include publishing flow and real time analytics, allowing you to set up and preview a stream before it goes live and see where your viewers are. And Wirecast for Youtube Live, giving users the option to stream events from their desktop.

It’s no surprise that Youtube has made this move, revenue strategies has been the biggest concern for the site for the last twelve months as it experimented with video ads. Paid live events are only available in Canada, Japan, France, the U.S. and the UK, and is still only available to select publishers although Youtube has said that there are plans to expand it and allow wider use of the service, with the expectation that many more people will use the service when it’s released.