YouTube Red is a monthly-paid subscription service by YouTube

YouTube Red is a monthly-paid subscription service by YouTube, exclusively for users in the United States, Australia, New Zealand and 

more recently in some targeted channels for electronic games in Brazil. It provides advertising-free streaming of videos hosted by the 

service, offline and background playback of videos on mobile devices, and access to advertising-free music streaming.

It was originally launched in November 2014, offering only ad-free streaming of music and music videos from participating labels on 

YouTube and Google Play Music. The service was then revised and relaunched as YouTube Red on October 28, 2015, expanding its scope to 

offer ad-free access to all YouTube videos, as opposed to just music.

Besides ad-free streaming, YouTube Red has also participated with major networks and certain YouTube celebrities to offer "YouTube Red 

Originals", movies and television shows exclusive only to Red members, such as the reality series, Scare PewDiePie.

History[edit]

The service was first unveiled in November 2014 as Music Key, serving as a collaboration between YouTube and Google Play Music, and 

meant to succeed the former's own subscription service. Music Key offered ad-free playback of music videos from participating labels 

hosted on YouTube, as well as background and offline playback of music videos on mobile devices from within the YouTube app. The service 

also included access to Google Play Music All Access, which provides ad-free audio streaming of a library of music.[5] Alongside Music 

Key, Google also introduced tighter integration between Play Music and YouTube's apps, including the sharing of music recommendations, 

and access to YouTube's music videos from within the Play Music app. Music Key was not YouTube's first foray into premium content, 

having launched film rentals in 2010, and premium, subscription-based channels in 2013.

During its invite-only beta, Music Key faced mixed reception due to the limited scope of the offering; YouTube's chief business officer 

Robert Kyncl explained that his daughter was confused over why videos of songs from Frozen were not "music" in the scope of the service, 

and thus not ad-free.These concerns and others led to a revamping of the Music Key concept to create YouTube Red; unlike Music Key, 

YouTube Red was designed to provide ad-free streaming to all videos, rather than just music content. This shift required YouTube to seek 

permission from its content creators and rights holders to allow their content to be part of the ad-free service; under the new contract 

terms, partners would receive a share of the total revenue from YouTube Red subscriptions, as determined by how much their content is 

viewed by subscribers.

YouTube also sought to compete against sites such as Hulu and Netflix by offering original content as part of the subscription service, 

leveraging prominent YouTube personalities in combination with professional producers. Robert Kyncl acknowledged that while many of 

YouTube's prominent personalities had built their followings and created content while operating on a "shoestring budget", he admitted 

that "in order to scale up, it takes a different kind of enterprise, a different kind of skill set; there is [a] story-telling skill 

set, there is showrunning, etc."

On October 21, 2015, it was announced that the service would be re-launched in a revised form as YouTube Red on October 28, 2015, 

expanding its scope to offer ad-free access to all YouTube videos, as opposed to just music, as well as premium content produced in 

collaboration with notable YouTube producers and personalities. Prominent YouTube personality PewDiePie, who is involved in one of the 

planned originals for the service, explained that the service was meant to mitigate profits lost due to the use of ad blocking.

On May 18, 2016 YouTube Red was launched in Australia and New Zealand, the first countries to gain access to the service outside the 

United States. YouTube Music was also launched on the same day, which is an app designed to utilize the large amount of music on 

YouTube.

A YouTube Red subscription allows users to watch videos on YouTube without advertisements across the website and its mobile apps, 

including the dedicated YouTube Music and YouTube Gaming apps. Through the apps, users can also save videos to their device for offline 

viewing, and play them in the background.YouTube Red will also offer original, premium content exclusive to subscribers, the content 

will be created and published by YouTube's largest channels and creators.The service also offers ad-free music streaming through the 

Google Play Music All Access service.