(Almost) no advertising: Youtube apparently brings back Premium Lite
According to a report, YouTube wants to bring back the Premium Lite subscription soon. It promises ad-free video streaming – with some exceptions.
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YouTube apparently wants to bring back a cheaper version of its subscription for ad-free video streaming. According to a report by Bloomberg, Premium Lite is about to be launched in Germany. The cheaper alternative to the Premium subscription is also to be offered for the first time on Google's US home market.
If you want to watch YouTube ad-free, you have to take out a Premium subscription. However, YouTube Premium comes with numerous additional features, including music streaming via YouTube Music and the option to play videos on your cell phone in the background or download them for offline use. Subscribers pay for these features even if they don't want to use them.
New attempt for Premium Lite
Back in 2021, YouTube introduced a Premium Lite subscription that offered ad-free video streaming for €7 per month and did not include any additional features. This made it €5 per month cheaper than the standard YouTube Premium subscription at the time. However, this version of Premium Lite was never reliably available: Individual users were able to sign up for it in various countries , but their subscriptions were canceled at the end of 2023.
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Since then, there have been repeated reports that YouTube has sporadically offered its Premium Lite subscription again. According to Bloomberg, Premium Lite is finally about to make its big international launch. "As part of our efforts to give our users more choice and flexibility, we've been testing a new YouTube Premium offering in some of our markets, where most videos are ad-free," a YouTube spokesperson told Bloomberg. "We hope to expand this offering to even more users in the future with the support of our partners."
According to Bloomberg, the concept remains true to previous tests: Premium Lite users do not receive any advertising, but do not benefit from additional features such as video downloads on mobile devices. In contrast to the standard YouTube Premium subscription, Premium Lite customers will also continue to see advertisements for music videos. The pricing for the new version of Premium Lite is not known.
(dahe)
