YouTube Music Rumored to Launch Next Week; YouTube Premium May Replace YouTube Red

BY Evan Selleck

Published 17 May 2018

Word on the street has been rampant that the YouTube team is building its own subscription music service, going up against the likes of Spotify and Apple Music.

Those initial rumors have bean leaning towards the service being called YouTube Remix, and the latest report suggested that the launch of that streaming platform would mean the ultimate demise of Google Play Music — Google’s own direct subscription music offering. While most of the rumors appear to be accurate, based on a new report this week from Recode, there are a few key, important differences.

First and foremost, the new service is reportedly going to be called YouTube Music — not YouTub Remix. It is expected to have a “soft launch” on Tuesday, May 22, and it will reportedly cost the industry standard $9.99 per month. So that puts it even with the aforementioned competition. The new service will offer the basic amenities, including personalized playlists based on listening history, offline music listening, and more.

The biggest change will reportedly come with a new brand, YouTube Premium. This is going to end YouTube Red, which is YouTube’s $10 per month service to remove ads from the platform, as well as access original content. Apparently the YouTube team is going to hike up the price of YouTube Premium to $12 per month, and these two services are going to be separate.

“That service, which is supposed to soft-launch on Tuesday, will cost $10 a month after a trial period. (That same service will eventually also replace Google Play Music, a rival music service Google has inexplicably operated at the same time it was trying to get YouTube Music off the ground.)

Now YouTube intends to charge $2 more for the other parts of YouTube Red, which will be renamed YouTube Premium — but will require you to also pay for YouTube Music.”

So while you got a solid music listening experience with YouTube Red, that won’t be the case this time around. If you want the subscription streaming music experience, you will need to subscribe to YouTube Music for the $10 per month. And then if you want original YouTube content like Cobra Kai and other originals, along with no ads on YouTube videos, you will need to pay $12 per month for YouTube Premium.

These services are expected to arrive next week, so Google will more than likely have more to announce soon.

[via Recode]