YouTube announces subscription streaming service, ‘Music Key’

As earlier discussed, YouTube will be launching a music streaming service called YouTube Music Key. The beta version will be released on Monday of next week. Once it’s open to the public (sometime in 2015), you’ll be able to enjoy ad-free music and videos for $10 a month.

The company said in a blog post, “It will also include a subscription to Google Play Music, with 30+ million songs, expert-curated playlists, and in the coming days, the ability to watch many YouTube official music videos right from the app.”

“We've signed deals with every major label and hundreds of indie labels worldwide to make these features available,” Christophe Muller, the company's head of music partnerships, told Rolling Stone. “We didn't expect this to happen overnight.”

This will put the company in direct competition with streaming services like Spotify, Beats (now owned by Apple) and Amazon. Read more from YouTube:

You’ve asked us for ways to listen to music without ads, to keep playing music videos even if you lock the screen or start using another app, and to play music even if you’re not connected to the Internet. That’s why today we're introducing YouTube Music Key beta, a monthly subscription service starting with the promotional price of $7.99/month (discounted from $9.99/month) that will give you all that—ads-free music, background play and offline viewing. It will also include a subscription to Google Play Music, with 30+ million songs, expert-curated playlists, and in the coming days, the ability to watch many YouTube official music videos right from the app.

Thanks to your music videos, remixes, covers, and more, you’ve made YouTube the biggest music service on the planet. To turn YouTube into your perfect music service, we’re launching YouTube Music Key as a beta with our biggest music fans first, and then we’ll bring YouTube Music Key to the whole world together. So, if you see an invite in your app or email, try it out for six months for free.