YouTube Music will launch free background listening beginning in Canada

YouTube Music is lifting one among its most annoying limitations — however solely in Canada. Today, YouTube introduced that starting November third, prospects in Canada will be capable of proceed listening to their music within the background whereas doing different duties on their cellphone or when the display screen is off.

Background listening will help each the usual ad-supported, customized radio mixes and any uploaded content material you’ve added to your account.

This is the primary time that YouTube Music has supplied the function with out requiring that prospects step as much as a Premium subscription to get it. As for when listeners in different nations can anticipate to get the identical comfort, for now, YouTube is barely saying to “stay tuned for additional information and expansion plans.”

Free background listening is desk stakes amongst YouTube Music’s opponents, together with Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora, Tidal, and others, so that is an space the place YouTube lags its rivals. Hopefully, that growth will get underway prior to later.

Even if background playback involves the free tier, YouTube Music Premium nonetheless has different advantages: offline downloads is the massive one, however you additionally get to pay attention with none advertisements and seamlessly swap between common audio and music movies.