YouTube Reaches 125 Million Subscribers, Announces ‘Premium Lite’ Tier

YouTube now has 125 million subscribers across YouTube Music and YouTube Premium, according to an open letter from Lyor Cohen published on Wednesday (March 5). 

Cohen called this number — which includes trial users — “an incredible milestone that many laughed off as impossible when we first launched. This momentum is critical to our goal of becoming the No. 1 contributor of revenue.”

In addition, Cohen announced that YouTube launched a new subscription tier in the U.S., Premium Lite, which allows users to watch the majority of videos without ads. (They will still be shown ads on music videos, other music content, and Shorts.) 

Premium Lite costs $7.99 a month, rather than YouTube Premium’s $13.99. During tests of Premium Lite, Cohen noted, “more Lite members upgraded to YouTube Premium than Premium members downgraded to Premium Lite.” 

The Lite tier will presumably help YouTube in its efforts to conquer what CEO Neal Mohan called “the next frontier” for the company — “the living room.” Viewers are “watching YouTube the way we used to sit down together for traditional TV shows — on the biggest screen in the home with friends and family,” Mohan wrote in February 2024. 

“Viewers globally now watch more than 1 billion hours on average of YouTube content on their TVs every day,” he continued. “According to Nielsen’s report on streaming in the U.S., YouTube was the leader in streaming watchtime for the past 11 months.”

Cohen struck a similar theme in his recent letter. “For 2 years in a row, Nielsen ranked YouTube the No. 1 streaming platform in watch time in the U.S.,” he wrote. TVs are “the fastest-growing surface for YouTube,” Cohen added, “and the primary viewing device in the U.S.” 

YouTube celebrated its 20th anniversary in February, and Cohen was characteristically bullish on the company’s future.

“Have you ever heard of anyone retiring at 20?” he asked. “20 is when things get interesting.”