YouTube Tests Cheaper 'Premium Lite' Subscription for Ad-Free Viewing
YouTube is piloting a new cheaper subscription tier in Europe called "Premium Lite," which offers ad-free viewing minus YouTube Premium's other features.
First spotted by a user on ResetEra and subsequently confirmed by Google, the "Lite" plan means users who aren't interested in offline downloads or background playback can still enjoy YouTube videos on web and mobile app without being interrupted by ads.
A YouTube spokesperson told The Verge:
"In Nordics and Benelux (except for Iceland), we're testing a new offering to give users even more choice: Premium Lite costs €6.99/month (or local equivalent per month) and it includes ad-free videos on YouTube."
A standard YouTube Premium plan costs around €11.99/£11.99 a month in Europe and $11.99 in the United States, and includes ad-free viewing on web, mobile app, smart TVs and consoles, as well as ad-free YouTube Music listening, background playback, and offline downloads.
As The Verge notes, the "Lite" option costs around 60% of the price of a Premium plan but only offers a quarter of the features. However, YouTube says that the subscription plan is still in an experimental phase, and that it could still roll out more plans to gauge user feedback.
Related Stories
Friday September 3, 2021 2:19 am PDT by
Sami FathiYouTube says it has passed 50 million subscribers for its Premium and Music subscriptions, making it the "fastest growing music subscription" service in the world, according to YouTube's global head of music, Lyor Cohen. YouTube says that it has more than 50 million paying subscribers collectively across YouTube Premium and YouTube Music. The Google-owned service says it attributes this...
Netflix today updated the prices for its streaming plans, and all of its offerings are now more expensive. The Basic plan is now priced at $9.99 per month, the Standard plan is priced at $15.49 per month, and the Premium plan is priced at $19.99 per month.
The Basic plan is $1 more expensive, up from $8.99 per month. This plan allows users to watch on just one screen at a time, and it limits ...
MacRumors and Flexibits have partnered up this week, offering our readers a chance to take 50 percent off their first year of Flexibits Premium, which includes popular apps Fantastical and Cardhop. This offer will run through December 31 on the Flexibits website, and the subscription supports apps across macOS, iOS, and iPadOS.
Note: MacRumors is an affiliate partner with Flexibits. When you...
Apple Music is the second most popular music streaming service globally, but remains far behind Spotify in its continuing quest for streaming dominance, according to new market research. According to a new report by Midia Research, Apple Music subscribers made up 15% of all streaming service listeners in the global market in the second quarter of 2021, placing it in a distant second place...
January is when many of us make New Year's resolutions for improvements that we want to enact in the new year, and if you're looking to bolster your productivity and adopt new habits, we have a great list of iOS and Mac apps that you might want to check out.
Subscribe to the MacRumors YouTube channel for more videos. We've outlined the apps, provided links, and listed app pricing below, but...
After a long wait, YouTube for iOS is officially gaining picture-in-picture support, allowing all users, non-premium and premium subscribers, to close the YouTube app and continue watching their video in a small pop-up window.
In a statement to MacRumors, YouTube says that picture-in-picture is currently rolling out to all premium subscribers on iOS and that a larger rollout to all US iOS...
Spotify users waiting to learn when the service's delayed "HiFi" premium audio service will materialize currently remain none the wiser, after the company responded noncommittally to requests for more information on its user community forums.
Back in February, Spotify announced plans to introduce a "HiFi" premium tier by the end of 2021. According to Spotify, the feature will offer...
Instagram today began rolling out subscription options that are designed to allow Instagram users to pay for exclusive Instagram Live videos and Stories from their preferred creators.
As noted by TechCrunch, Instagram is testing the subscription feature with a selection of 10 U.S. creators, each of whom can choose their subscription price. Subscription pricing ranges from $0.99 per month to...
Popular Stories
Apple's AirPods have been credited with saving a woman's life after a potentially fatal fall, People reports.
When a 60-year-old florist in New Jersey tripped and hit her head in her studio, she lost consciousness and awoke heavily bleeding. With nobody around to call for help, she realized she had her AirPods in, and used a "Hey Siri" command to call 911. An operator was able to stay on the ...
Apple will no longer include EarPods with every iPhone sold in France, starting on January 24, according to a notice posted by a French carrier (via iGeneration). Apple was previously required to include EarPods in the box with the iPhone due to a French law that required every smartphone sold in the country to come with a "handsfree kit," but the law has now been changed in favor of reducing the ...
Following months of bleak news about Peloton's "precarious state," including the revelation that it has halted production of its bikes and treadmills, Apple is being floated as a potential buyer of Peloton's troubled fitness business.
Yesterday, CNBC reported that Peloton will temporarily stop production of its connected fitness products due to a "significant reduction" in consumer demand, a ...
Apple has always emphasized the depth of thought that goes into the design of its products. In the foreword to Designed by Apple in California, a photo book released by the company in 2016, Jony Ive explains how the company strives "to define objects that appear effortless" and "so simple, coherent and inevitable that there could be no rational alternative."
But every once in a while even...
Earlier this week, Bloomberg's Mark Gurman tweeted that Apple "will be holding a spring event" to announce a new iPhone SE and other hardware. In a recent edition of his newsletter, Gurman said the event is likely to occur in March or April.
Gurman did not elaborate on what "other hardware" will be announced at Apple's purported spring event, but rumors suggest at least four products are...
Apple is working on a number of new products that are set to launch this fall, and Bloomberg's Mark Gurman says that it will be "the widest array" of new devices that Apple has introduced in its history.
In his latest "Power On" newsletter, Gurman explains that Apple is working on four new iPhones (iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Max, iPhone 14 Pro, and iPhone 14 Max), an updated low-end MacBook Pro, a ...
The watchOS 8.4 release candidate that was seeded to developers and beta testers this morning addresses an ongoing bug that could cause some Apple Watch chargers not to work properly with the Apple Watch.
Back in December, we reported on a growing number of charging issues that Apple Watch Series 7 owners were facing. Since watchOS 8.3, there have been a number of complaints about...
The macOS Monterey 12.2 and iOS 15.3 release candidates that came out today appear to address a Safari bug that could cause your recent browsing history and details about your identity to be leaked to malicious entities.
As shared last week by browser fingerprinting service FingerprintJS, there is an issue with the WebKit implementation of the IndexedDB JavaScript API. Any website that uses...
Earlier this week, Apple began requiring that customers taking advantage of educational discounts in the United States verify their status as a teacher, student, or school staff member through UNiDAYS.
The requirement was a major change as Apple had never asked customers to go through a verification process in the United States before, and now, just three days after verification was added,...
Top Rated Comments
Or make offline downloads cost additional.
I don’t want ads and i want background playback.
Don’t use offline downloads at all.
£12 per month for this and no ads is too high. I trialled it and then cancelled. I would pay £6 pm, but only if background playback was also added.
Ad-free viewing of videos is what I'm interested in, but the "normal" price includes Youtube Music. I also have music streaming elsewhere, I have no need for that from Youtube - so getting rid of that to reduce the price would be my first pick.
Premium Lite. What a stupid name.
by the way, how does Google still get away with a more expensive subscription price via Apple IAP? I thought this wasn’t allowed and that’s why Netflix stopped signing up from iOS all together