Not content with being the world's biggest video platform, YouTube now wants to be Netflix. A report from the Wall Street Journal says that YouTube is looking to bolster its new premium service, YouTube Red, with TV shows and movies.

YouTube Red launched a few weeks ago and offers ad-free YouTube, offline playback, and background music video playback for $9.99 per month. YouTube is developing exclusive original series for the service with some of its homegrown stars like "PewDiePie," but now it apparently wants to add professional TV shows and movies to the mix, putting it in competition with Netflix.

Of course, all of this hinges on actually securing deals with content studios, which have historically been wary of Google's online dominance. But spending lots and lots of cash may help get deals done. According to the report, Netflix is expected to spend $3.3 billion this year, and Hulu and Amazon are spending $1.5 billion.

YouTube would also seem to have the right personnel in place. The Journal notes that YouTube recently hired Susanne Daniels, a former programming chief of MTV, along with Kelly Merryman, a former Netflix content executive, and that they both report to Robert Kyncl, another former Netflixer and current YouTube chief business officer.

Google also has a few video content deals done already through Google Play Movies & TV, although they are usually just for à la carte video purchases. The report says that those existing relations should help to negotiate streaming contracts, and both the Google Play and YouTube deal negotiators work out of the same office.

Whether this new content launches or not is always iffy considering that Google will need the cooperation of movie and TV studios. Adding TV shows and movies would be a return to the way people originally used YouTube back when it launched, only then it was purely pirated TV shows and movies.