Throwing its giant hat into the already crowded subscription video game is YouTube, which revealed Wednesday that it is gearing up to launch a paid service for people who don’t want to have to watch commercials. Fortune magazine reports that the service is expected to launch by the end of this year.

Rumors of the service surfaced last fall, but this is the first confirmation of the plan from YouTube.

The Google-owned online streaming giant “reportedly disclosed the planned paid service in an e-mail sent to producers of top video content and obtained by various media outlets. The e-mail did not say how much the subscription would cost or when it would become available. However, Bloomberg cited an anonymous source who said the paid service would be available before the end of this year,” Forturne reports.

The move positions YouTube to compete with Netflix, Amazon, Hulu and other subscription video services and to try to distance itself from an advertising-only revenue model.