Update 5/18: Article has been updated to reflect the recent response from YouTube regarding current family plan members.
Today, Google announced new YouTube subscription services—YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium—and a brand new YouTube Music app. There’s been a slew of confusion and frustration over this move, namely because both are different in their own ways but also because of the lack of clear communication from Google over the upcoming changes. In this post, we’re going to attempt to clear up some of that confusion by explaining what exactly is changing and what will happen for users of YouTube Red and Google Play Music.
Yes, you’re probably wondering: isn’t there already a YouTube Music? And you’re right. But the YouTube team wants to pretend that it never existed and is revamping the whole thing, including a new subscription model which we’ll get to in a bit.
In all honesty, the current YouTube Music app sucked. It focused more on music videos rather than music itself. It didn’t have a desktop client. It didn’t support Wear OS. It didn’t support Android Auto. That’s why many users, including me, stuck to Play Music, as it was just simply superior. Google is going to try again with YouTube Music and refresh the whole service starting next week, complete with a new desktop player. Support for Wear OS or Android Auto is unknown yet, however.
It also seems that the new YouTube Music combines features from Google Play Music such as personalized music based on your location. This all makes sense, considering the teams merged together just last year.
Users of the new YouTube Music can use it for free with the ad-supported version (albeit, without background play); however, if you don’t want ads but want background play, you’ll have to subscribe to YouTube Music Premium.
In short, beginning Tuesday, May 22, YouTube Red will be renamed to ‘YouTube Premium.’ The monthly price will also increase from $9.99 to $11.99, but this increase is only for new subscribers. Existing YouTube Red subscribers will stay grandfathered at their $9.99/month rate when this transition takes place, and they will get YouTube Premium, not just YouTube Music Premium.
What’s YouTube Music Premium? Music Premium is now the new entry-level subscription. At $9.99/month, users will get the benefits listed in the chart below, but only for music content. These benefits will apply to YouTube’s new Music app.
It’s been a mess because support and Google’s own blog posts have been giving conflicting responses, but I reached out to the Play Music team over on Twitter and received this response:
So in other words: It doesn’t matter which platform you’ve subscribed from—either Google Play Music or YouTube Red—you’ll still get YouTube Premium (which includes YouTube Music Premium) at your current rate. Users will be grandfathered at their rate, including the $7.99/month early Play Music subscribers. The $12.99/month for YouTube Premium is only for new users, and the new $9.99/month is for new YouTube Music Premium users.
Also according to Google, nothing is changing with Play Music “in the near future.” And according to the blog post, “you’ll still be able to access all of your purchased music, uploads, and playlists in Google Play Music just like always.”
Another question that many users have is what will happen to existing Play Music family users? Fortunately, it looks like these users are in luck, as Team YouTube over on Twitter has responded that you will continue to get the same benefits, even when YouTube Premium becomes available.
YouTube Premium will replace YouTube Red next Tuesday in the United States, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Korea. It’s also coming soon to new markets including Austria, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Norway, Russia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom.
If you’re not a YouTube Red subscriber currently and are interested in getting YouTube Premium for only $9.99/month versus the soon-to-be $11.99/month, then we recommend signing up for YouTube Red now over at youtube.com/red. The new YouTube Music will also roll-out next week and you can visit music.youtube.com/coming-soon to be notified when it launches.
Moreover, the following is a statement from CNET:
“In a briefing this week, the company promised it will be closing gaps between the two services over the next month, so Google Play Music members don’t lose the features they’ve grown accustomed to, including a cloud-based MP3 storage locker.”
That last part is key. We have a strong feeling that Google’s eventual plans are to depreciate Google Play Music once they finish porting all the existing features into the new YouTube Music app because it’s also unclear whether the new YouTube Music app allows Google Play Music users to transfer their playlists, purchased music, and uploads from Play Music. These next few months are going to be a sort of awkward/transitional period as Google goes from Play Music to YouTube Music.
And looking at the broader picture, it seems that Google is attempting to alienate itself from the “Play” brand, what with the recent merging of Google Play Newsstand and the Google News & Weather app into the new Google News and now this announcement from YouTube. And diverging a bit from the main topic here, if this is the direction they’re going, then we feel Google should also merge Google Play Movies into YouTube Movies and Google Play Books into Google Books.
Only time will tell.