In addition to the advertising that plays after every few songs, YouTube Music appears to be adding ads to the Now Playing screen.
If you don’t pay for YouTube Music, ads will appear between songs. The cover art is replaced by a rectangular image, with “Sponsored” appearing in the bottom-left corner. The progress bar also turns yellow with next/last grayed out.
Some YouTube Music users are now seeing banner ads in between the cover art (which shrinks) and the other Now Playing controls. There’s an advertiser image, line of text, “Sponsored” label, and URL at the left. At the right, you have dropdown and “Buy now” buttons. It’s a pretty standard ad format for Google.
Ads might be tied to the upcoming Now Playing redesign, which has been in testing for a few months and is not yet widely rolled out. As such, most people with the existing controls aren’t seeing the ads yet.
The ad-supported YouTube Music tier includes:
- On-demand playback for podcasts, songs, and music videos
- Access to audio-only, background play, and downloads for most podcasts
- Queuing, repeat, and unlimited skipping
- The Samples tab
- Music Tuner
- Access to fan badges, like top listener
Premium users get:
- Background play for music
- Music without ads
- Audio-only music playback
- Music downloads
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