5 changes coming to YouTube TV this summer

Summary

YouTube is celebrating its 20th anniversary by announcing a redesign of its TV is coming this summer.
The design is focused on easier navigation and playback, quality tweaks and improved access to essential features, like comments and subscribing.
YouTube TV’s Multiview feature is getting an upgrade and YouTube Premium members can now watch videos at 4x playback speed.

20 years ago, the first ever video was uploaded

to YouTube
. It’s only 19 seconds long and features YouTube co-founder Jawed Karim standing in front of elephants at the San Diego Zoo. Since that video, simply titled “Me at the Zoo,” YouTube has exploded into the largest online video platform on the planet, with over 20 trillion uploaded videos. Now, in light of YouTube’s 20th anniversary, the platform has announced significant plans for its

popular TV app
.

In a recent blog post, YouTube shared that it will launch a redesign of its TV viewing experience this summer. Five major changes include easier navigation and playback, quality tweaks, as well as improved access to comments, channel info, and subscribing. YouTube describes the changes as a “TV viewing upgrade.”

YouTube hasn’t officially showcased what all these redesigns look like just yet, but chances are they’ll be revealed soon enough, since YouTube plans to launch these changes this summer. However, there’s no word on an exact release date yet. Additionally, YouTube has unveiled several new features that are now available.

YouTube TV

Simultaneous streams: 3
# of profiles: 6
Live TV: Yes
Price: Starts at $83 /month
Free trial: Yes, length varies

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YouTube TV’s Multiview is getting an upgrade

You can now choose up to four different channels to watch at once

YouTube TV against a black screen in front of blurred apps.

Unsplash / Pocket-lint

To celebrate its 20th anniversary, YouTube also announced new features that are rolling out now to YouTube TV and

YouTube Premium
subscribers. Starting with YouTube TV, members can now watch much more at once thanks to the new customizable Multiview feature, which allows you to watch up to four different streams simultaneously that you select.

However, Multiview is currently limited to “non-sports content” and a “small group of popular channels.” YouTube states it will expand the number of channels available for Multiview in the “coming months.” Before this update, the Multiview feature was only accessible for preselected channels chosen by YouTube, and customization was not possible.

For YouTube Premium and YouTube Music subscribers, YouTube is also launching a new AI-powered feature called Ask Music, which lets users generate their own “personalized radio station” of songs based on their prompts. The feature is available now on iOS and Android, but only for English-language subscribers. YouTube notes that more languages will be supported soon.

Finally, if you want to watch YouTube videos very quickly, YouTube Premium members can now watch videos at 4x playback speed. Of all the announcements YouTube made for its 20th anniversary, I’m most excited about the changes coming to the TV app. While I don’t mind the current app, I admit navigating it can be a bit tricky at times, especially for new users. Hopefully, YouTube’s redesign of it this summer will make it much more user-friendly. Considering TV is the most popular way to watch YouTube now, a lot is at stake with this upcoming “TV viewing upgrade.”