UPDATE: The new YouTube Music Premium will cost $9.99 per month and include ad-free music (including music videos), support for listening to music in the background, and music downloads. YouTube Premium will cost $11.99 per month and include all of those features as well as ad-free videos, videos that play in the background, video download support, and access to YouTube Originals.
ORIGINAL: Rumors about a paid YouTube Music streaming service have been swirling for months, and now it sounds like the service is finally ready to launch.
The new paid YouTube Music streaming service will soft launch next Tuesday, says Recode, and will cost $10 per month after a trial. It's expected that this service will eventually replace Google's current paid music streaming service, Google Play Music, while gaining new features like personalized playlists based on your YouTube history.
It's also rumored that Google is planning to offer a paid add-on called YouTube Premium. This add-on will reportedly cost $2 per month — on top of the $10 for YouTube Music — and include access to original YouTube Red shows. It's unclear what other features might be included.
YouTube Red currently costs $10 per month and includes access to original shows, an ad-free YouTube viewing, offline videos, and a Google Play Music subscription. It makes sense that Google would rebrand Google Play Music into YouTube Music, especially since YouTube thinks of Red as a music streaming service, but it'll be interesting to see which current YouTube Red features are included in the new YouTube Music and which ones are moved into YouTube Premium. For example, some folks will probably be frustrated if YouTube begins asking them to pay extra for ad-free viewing after getting it for $10 per month.
Do you subscribe to YouTube Red? If so, what's your most-used feature?
