YouTube ends cheaper ad-free 'Premium Lite' subscription plan

San Francisco: Google-owned YouTube has announced to end the lower-cost subscription plan ‘Premium Lite’, after piloting it for two years in select countries.

In an email to customers, the company announced it will no longer offer ‘Premium Lite’ after October 25 this year reports ‘The Verge’.

"We’re writing to let you know that after October 25, 2023, we will no longer be offering your version of Premium Lite," YouTube wrote in the email. "While we understand that this may be disappointing news, we continue to work on different versions of ‘Premium Lite’ as we incorporate feedback from our users, creators and partners," it added. YouTube's ‘Premium Lite’ plan, which costs $7.39 per month was first introduced in select European countries in 2021, including Belgium, Denmark, Finland, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden, and offers ad-free viewing across YouTube's spectrum of apps and formats.

However, it does not include Premium's other features such as offline downloads, background playback, or any YouTube Music benefits, the report said. Existing ‘Premium Lite’ subscribers will soon be forced to choose between watching YouTube with ads and upgrading to the more expensive YouTube Premium, which includes YouTube Music. The removal comes only a few weeks after YouTube Premium raised its individual plan prices for the first time, with the plan now starting at $13.99 per month.

Meanwhile, family plans increased to $22.99 per month late last year. Meanwhile, YouTube has announced a new feature for its short-video making platform ‘Shorts’ that will allow users to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) tools to create videos. The feature called -- ‘Dream Screen’, expected to roll out early next year, will allow users to create an AI-generated video or image background just by typing in what they want to see.