YouTube has announced YouTube Red, a new paid subscription service which offers all-in-one ad-free viewing and listening. They’re also launching a new YouTube Music app.
YouTube Red allows you to save videos to watch offline, as well as keep videos playing in the background while using other apps or turning off your screen. Subscribers also get access to Google Play Music (and vice versa).
YouTube Red costs $9.99 a month for Android and desktop devices, but it costs $12.99 for iOs devices. It launches October 28. U.S. users can try it free for a month.
YouTube Music doesn’t have a launch date yet; it’s “coming soon.” When it launches, the YouTube Music app will be available on its own, though to access the ad-free, offline, and background capabilities, you will need to subscribe to YouTube Red.
A press release points out: “Don’t worry! The free, ad-supported version of YouTube we all know and love isn’t going anywhere.”
YouTube Red will also include new, original programming from CollegeHumor, PewDiePie, Lilly Singh and others.
The new service replaces YouTube Music Key, which launched in beta last year. Explaining the transition in a press Q&A, the company said, “We launched a beta of the music subscription specifically to learn from our biggest music fans on YouTube. A key learning was that they didn’t want to use these features on just music — they wanted to use them across all of YouTube. To make this subscription most compelling to them, as well as the broadest audience on YouTube, we decided to create a site-wide membership called YouTube Red.”
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