YouTube Music adds new banner ads to its Now Playing Screen
New banner ad tests are appearing on YouTube’s Now Playing view for free-tier users.
A new banner ad
YouTube Music looks to be monetizing its free music tier in a new way, as free users have started to notice a new banner ad placement on the Now Playing screen. Traditionally, ads were only placed between every few songs, replacing album art with skippable or unskippable (image or video) ads marked ‘Sponsored’.
Now, some users are spotting a static banner ad sitting just below the album artwork and above the song title. This shrinks the cover art and resembles a typical Google banner ad, complete with a clickable link, dropdown options to visit the advertiser’s site, and a ‘Sponsored’ label.
Why are they putting ads there.
byu/Ozmond_Human inYoutubeMusic
The change was first highlighted by Reddit and 9to5Google, and doesn’t appear to be widely rolled out yet. Instead, it could be part of the broader redesign to the Now Playing screen which YouTube Music has been testing since late 2024.
User feedback
User response has been overwhelmingly understanding of the change. While the original poster called the layout “ugly and really annoying”, others were more understanding, noting that ads help fund the platform. If you don’t want ads, pay for a premium subscription. The top response highlights that “Google is a business at the end of the day” and they still need to “make money to pay the artists, staff and server costs” from their free music tier.
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