YouTube to launch new music streaming service

YouTube Music will replace Google Play Music

18/05/2018
YouTube Music Android App
YouTube Music Android App screenshots

YouTube will be launching a new music streaming service on 22nd May in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea and a further rollout to Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK in the coming weeks.

YouTube’s new music streaming services

  • YouTube Music – a free ad-supported streaming service
  • YouTube Music Premium – a paid membership that provides background listening, downloads and an ad-free experience for US $9.99 a month.
  • YouTube Premium (the new name for YouTube Red) – a paid membership that provides YouTube Music (ad-free, with background listening and downloads) and ad-free access with downloads to all of YouTube content for US $11.99 per month.

The one exception to this rollout plan is in South Korea where YouTube will only offer the YouTube Premium membership, not YouTube Music Premium.

YouTube Music will have a new mobile app and a brand new desktop player that are designed specifically for music. Screenshots of the new Android mobile app showing downloads, favourites and playlists show how the new service will look.

Existing YouTube Red and Google Play Music subscribers

  • YouTube Red subscribers will get access to YouTube Premium when it launches. YouTube Red members will automatically receive access at their current price and in countries where YouTube Red is currently available, a new member can also secure this price ($9.99 in the U.S.) by joining now at youtube.com/red.
  • Google Play Music Subscribers will get a YouTube Music Premium membership as part of their subscription each month. And if you use Google Play Music, nothing will change – you’ll still be able to access all of your purchased music, uploads and playlists in Google Play Music as before. However, Google Play Music subscribers lose their subscription to YouTube Red with ad-free viewing and downloads of YouTube.

As Google Play Music and YouTube are both owned by Alphabet it isn’t clear what the long term future is for Google Play Music as YouTube Music Premium is a very similar service.

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