YouTube Red and Google Play Music to Merge in New Subscription Service

Google Play Music and the ad-free YouTube Red service are set to merge in a new streaming package, according to YouTube's head of music (via The Verge).

Lyor Cohen revealed the coming change during a panel session at the New Music Seminar conference in New York on Wednesday, saying the two services needed to be combined to educate consumers and attract new subscribers.

The important thing is combining YouTube Red and Google Play Music, and having one offering,” Cohen said when asked about why YouTube Red isn’t more popular with music users. He didn’t address whether or not the two apps would merge — but it seems very unlikely.

By consolidating the offerings into a unified package, Google hopes the benefits of its subscriptions will be clearer to customers. Currently the company offers YouTube Red, which removes ads and lets users save videos for offline viewing, in addition to an ad-supported YouTube Music app (with additional benefits for Red subscribers), while YouTube TV is provided as a separate subscription service.

Google said it would notify users of the changes beforehand, but the timeframe for the rebranding remains unclear. Still, existing subscribers to YouTube Red or Google Play Music shouldn't see a hugely significant change, as the two services are essentially already combined.

Tags: YouTube, Google Play Music, YouTube Red

Top Rated Comments

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farewelwilliams

33 months ago

what they should have done in the first place...

Rating: 11 Votes

RamGuy

33 months ago

How about making the service available in more countries? How YouTube RED is not available in more countries is beyond me.. It's a service giving you access to a few YouTube RED shows, ad-free YouTube and some additional features in their mobile apps like Picture-in-Picture, background playback and offline videos. How hard can it be for YouTube to make this available outside the US?

The fact that Google is crippling the YouTube experience on iOS by not offering picture-in-picture, background playback and offline capabilities without having YouTube RED when it's limited to so few countries is just plain stupid.

Rating: 7 Votes

X--X

33 months ago

They only do this because YouTube Red is a complete flop.

Rating: 6 Votes

thesheleys

33 months ago

How is this different? I have Google Music and already get Youtube Red as part of it.

Rating: 4 Votes

anthorumor

33 months ago

In Australia we already get YouTube red with Google music. Didn't realise it's not like this in other countries. I hope they improve the iOS apps since music doesn't do proper split screen on my iPad, and there's no pip despite a workaround by copying the YouTube URL into another website.

Rating: 3 Votes

69Mustang

33 months ago

A few thoughts from a YouTube Red Subscriber:

1. Will the price go up with the merge?
2. Will I be able to opt-out of Google Music?
3. Will content creators see less revenue per YT Red View now that the subscribers' dollars are being split between record labels & YT Content Creators?

As a lover of Apple Music and believe in supporting YouTube content Creators, I subscribe to both. I've been sold on the fact that Red subscribers give more money than creators than a skippable ad. I hope that remains true and I have no plans to use Google Music.

Few thoughts.
1.If you're in the US, they've pretty much been unofficially merged for almost 2 years. $10 has gotten you both. I imagine keeping that uniform is probably the best course of action.

2. Why would you need to opt out? Just don't download the app. Again, if you're in the US, you already have Play Music.

3. Why would Content Creators see less revenue? Their revenue is primarily generated by views of their own content. Record labels would only get revenue based on their content. Just like they do now.

Rating: 2 Votes

bartvk

33 months ago

Apparently some countries

That's putting it mildly. YouTube Red is only available in five! countries ('https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/6307365'): United States, Australia, Mexico, New Zealand and South Korea. Geographically speaking, it might be the most limited Google service ever, and has been so since the beginning. No effort was made after introducing it, as far as I can find.

Rating: 2 Votes

69Mustang

33 months ago

I don't necessarily think it's a flop more than it is expensive for what you're receiving. Binding services make sense in some respects and expanding into other Countries should be a consideration also.

I was going to disagree with you and say that Red is a great value considering it comes with free Play Music subscription (or Play Music comes with free Red) all for $10 or $15 for family. I did not realize that wasn't the case everywhere. Red by itself for $10? It's not a hard pass, but it's a pass nonetheless.

Under the assumption that it was "buy one, get the other free" everywhere I always thought it a bit convoluted for the services to be separate. Officially binding them together just makes sense to me, especially since I thought they were already bound behind the scenes.

Side note: I need to stop assuming just because we (US market) get something that it's the same everywhere.

Rating: 2 Votes

mlody

33 months ago

So they will bundle services? Isnt this why all cable/satelite providers are hurting because of bundling in the first place? Weak channels/services are being carried by more popular and in demand ones and people are forced to pay for them?

Whats next from google? Red this or red that? I do not want them to get an idea of charging people for services?

What if in few years most of their services would require fee in order to fully use them?

Want traffic info in maps, pay, want push service for email, pay, etc and the next thing we know, people end up paying $20-30 a month to use google services.

Rating: 2 Votes

BigMcGuire

33 months ago

3. Why would Content Creators see less revenue? Their revenue is primarily generated by views of their own content. Record labels would only get revenue based on their content. Just like they do now.

Google definitely makes less money with Youtube Red - but I think creators get a "tiny" bit more than watching ads. Yeah, I remember them advertising this back in the day. I talked to a Google Employee and his first reaction was that Youtube Red doesn't make Google that much money vs ads (obviously that's his focus) on a view per view basis. :p

Rating: 2 Votes

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