On Wednesday, YouTube announced a new premium subscription tier called Premium Lite. This allows users to watch “most” videos without ads, for $7.99 a month. YouTube Lite allows customers to watch videos across verticals, such as games, fashion, beauty, cooking, news, and more, but they also show ads for music content and music videos.
As an entry-level subscription, the new tier does not offer some benefits with a full YouTube premium ($13.99/month) subscription, including the ability to download, background play, or the ability to watch music videos without ads.
The addition to YouTube’s subscription lineup was leaked last month by Bloomberg. It is piloted in Thailand, Germany and Australia, YouTube said, and will be open to US users, with subscriptions being offered to all users in the pilot market over the coming weeks.
YouTube says it will expand Premium Light to more markets initially as a pilot over the coming months.
This expansion serves as a way for YouTube to generate more revenue from subscriptions. The new Lite layer may make most sense for younger viewers who have almost replaced television time with watching online videos on sites like YouTube and Tiktok.
Also, watching videos on the large screen in your living room makes them even more attractive as they have less advertising. YouTube recently said that the majority of viewing in the US is currently being done on television, where mobile devices and desktops are outweighed.
The company is currently experimenting with the combination of YouTube Music and YouTube Premium subscriptions reaching over 125 million users worldwide.
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