New music streaming service Youtube Music to be launched next week

Youtube owner Google is announcing a new music streaming service which will launch on 22 May and is expected to rival Spotify, Apple Music and Tidal.

Youtube Music, which will replace the existing service Google Play Music, will adopt the premium account business model which some of its competitors use as well.

It will have a free account option which will contain ads, while a premium account is available at the cost of $9.99 (£7.40) per month.

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The current Youtube subscription service, Youtube Red, will be renamed Youtube Premium and will grant access to both the music service and ad-free video content. It will cost $11.99, a $2 increase from what it was before.

Product manager for Youtube Music Elias Roman told Music Ally: “More than 1bn music fans come to Youtube each month to be part of music culture and discover new music.”

Although Youtube has not revealed how many people subscribe to its services, the biggest competitor Spotify has more than 75m paying subscribers, followed by Apple Music with 40m.

In the past the company has not had as much success with its music streaming services. In 2014 it launched Youtube Music Key also for a monthly fee of $9.99 but it never gained much traction.

The service will be available in the US, Australia, New Zealand, Mexico and South Korea before it will eventually be made available to another 14 countries including the UK.

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