YouTube Red gets a rebrand as new music streaming service arrives
- Thursday, May 17th, 2018
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YouTube is launching a music streaming service, while increasing the price of its YouTube Red service and giving it a new name.
YouTube Music will be introduced on 22 May, giving users access to songs, albums, playlists, artist radio, remixes, live performances, cover, and music videos. The service is free with ads or ad-free for $9.99 a month through YouTube Music Premium – though ads are only removed from music content and not the rest of YouTube.
The Music Premium service will also enable subscribers to listen to music in the background and download content. Meanwhile, Google Play Music subscribers get access to Music Premium as part of their subscription.
On top of this, the YouTube Red service will be renamed YouTube Premium and will continue to offer all the perks of YouTube Music Premium, along with ad-free shows like Cobra Kai, but for the increased price of $11.99. However, existing YouTube Red members will still continue to pay the previous price.
YouTube Red launched back in 2015, giving subscribers ad-free access to an on-demand music service and all the original programming created for the platform, while removing ads from the entire YouTube ecosystem for users. YouTube Premium will serve the exact same purpose.
YouTube Music will roll out to the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Korea on 22 May. Over the next few weeks, it will launch in the UK, Ireland, Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, and Switzerland. The renaming, and increased price, of YouTube Red will be introduced ‘soon’.