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YouTube reminds everyone it’s a streamer, raises Premium subscription prices

YouTube announced on Friday that it’s raising the cost of its Premium plan by $2 a month to $15.99. The changes will take effect on June billing statements, the company said.

YouTube — which last hiked Premium subscription prices in 2023 — has some cover in boosting prices. Netflix announced a price hike last month, as did Amazon Prime Video. Spotify increased its subscription pricing earlier this year.

The move reflects a level of subscriber security from YouTube, which last year said its paid Premium and Music plans had 125 million subscribers (far fewer than Netflix’s 325 million subscribers). The platform continues to dominate overall streaming market share, accounting for 12.5% of TV viewing time in January, per Nielsen. YouTube has consistently stood atop Nielsen’s monthly viewership charts since February 2025.

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Hollywood may have its best year at the box office since 2019, but streaming audiences are still obsessed with old content

Viewers are opting for catalog content over new shows and movies across (pretty much) every major streamer.

Tom Jones6/29/26
culture
Tom Jones

The BBC has become the world’s top news website... by collapsing a little less than its competition

Press Gazette just published its annual look at the biggest news sites in the world across all languages; for the most part, it doesn’t make for particularly pretty reading.

The journalism industry publication’s latest update, which is based on estimates provided by Similarweb for May, found that 37 of the world’s 50 most visited news sites saw their reach shrink. Press Gazette highlighted that American outlets have been hit particularly hard by declining Google traffic compared to European counterparts, owing to the platform’s AI features rolling out earlier in the US.

Even the BBC, having climbed the rankings from last year to top the 2026 chart — reportedly in part thanks to Similarweb’s decision to combine the “.co.uk” and “.com” versions of the URL, given that the sites redirect to each other depending on the user’s location — showed a 1.9% decline from last year.

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