YouTube has announced its new streaming service, YouTube Music, will launch next Tuesday 22nd May.
As with competing streaming services Spotify, Tidal and Apple Music, YouTube music will be available both in a free ad-supported tier as well as in a premium subscription tier. Premium subscriptions will be available for $9.99 per month.
Initially, the service will be launched in the U.S., Australia, New Zealand, Mexico, and South Korea before eventually being rolled out in 14 other countries, including the UK.
According to an official statement from the company, YouTube Music will be “a new music streaming service made for music with the magic of YouTube: making the world of music easier to explore and more personalized than ever.”
Additionally, the service promises “official songs, albums, thousands of playlists and artist radio plus YouTube’s tremendous catalog of remixes, live performances, covers and music videos that you can’t find anywhere else.”
Existing subscribers to Google Play Music will be given immediate access to the new service. Google Play Music is expected to be gradually phased out as YouTube Music is introduced more globally.
Meanwhile, YouTube Red, an ad-free paid alternative to YouTube with exclusive video content, is to be rebranded as YouTube Premium and will include access to YouTube Music.
In other streaming news, Spotify entered the New York Stock Exchange in April this year with an estimated value of $26.5 Billion. Meanwhile, Apple is preparing to stop iTunes music downloads in 2019.
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