YouTube is finally planning to launch a new version of its music streaming service and it will be called YouTube Music. The streaming platform will be redesigned to compete the likes of Spotify and Apple Music. This new music streaming service is supposed to soft-launch on 22 May in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Korea first, before expanding to 14 other countries including the UK in “coming weeks”. YouTube Music will borrow the Spotify model and will be available as a free, ad-supported model and as well as a premium ad-free version. The paid tier will be called YouTube Music Premium and start for $9.99 per month.
The YouTube Music’s premium service will remove ads from all the music videos, but not rest of the YouTube. It will also allow the users to download music for offline listening, and play music in the background on smartphones when multitasking.
The revamped service offers the same functionality as its existing music service and adds more features like personalised playlists based on your YouTube history and other usage patterns. It will harness the endless amount of your personal information on Google to deliver customised listening experiences.
Google also said the YouTube Music would be for those looking for music, not just to listen to but also watch, making use of YouTube's extensive music video collection.
“YouTube was made for video, not just music,” explained Elias Roman, Product Manager, YouTube Music, in a blog post. “[We're] introducing YouTube Music, a new music streaming service made for music with the magic of YouTube: making the world of music easier to explore and more personalised than ever. The days of jumping back and forth between multiple music apps and YouTube are over.”
YouTube Music will eventually phase out Google Play Music, the company’s previous music streaming service. Also, this suggests that YouTube Red is also changing. Google has been packing Google Play Music with YouTube Red, the subscription video service for original and premium content from favourite YouTube creators.
Now YouTube Red has been rebranded to YouTube Premium and will cost $11.99 per month instead of $9.99. YouTube intends to charge $2 for other parts of YouTube service, but you will be required to pay for YouTube Music in any case.
Basically, under the new pricing system, there’s no way to subscribe alone to premium video content alone. It is music only or music plus video. YouTube Music will cost $10 per month while YouTube Premium will cost $12 and include Music, Ad-free content and premium video content.
