Photo Credit: YouTube Music
YouTube Music is making its radio experience a bit more Pandora-like with more customization features.
The previous radio experience on YouTube Music had people choose their listening experience by seeding from a pre-existing playlist, radio, or album. Now users can create their own radio stations from the ground up. To begin, YouTube Music asks users to select up to 30 artists when creating their own radio station. Users can customize how frequently these artists appear in the mix—with filters to change the mood of the station.
Users can choose to only play the artists selected for a more curated experience, or to include music from similar artists in a discovery mood. You can further refine these with specific filters.
“With this new radio functionality, we’re flipping that model on its head, empowering users to create their own radios from the ground up, by combining key music building blocks such as artists and common music descriptors,” says a YouTube Music spokesperson about the new feature.
“The result is giving users a lot more control over their music listening experiences, and allowing them to slice their music in many ways currently unavailable to them, on YouTube Music or really any music service.”
How to Create a Custom YouTube Music Radio Station
Ready to start listening to custom radio stations you’ve created? Here’s how to access this new feature in the YouTube Music app on iOS and Android.
- Open the YouTube Music app.
- Scroll down the homepage until you see ‘Your Music Tuner.’
- Begin customizing your first radio station.
This new feature is available to all YouTube Music listeners—free and paid. YouTube Music announced in November 2022 that it has 80 million Premium subscribers globally, a 30M+ increase compared to its subscriber numbers in 2021. YouTube says new features are the primary reason why users are subscribing.
“Alongside our music industry partners, we’ve been working hard to make YouTube the best place for every fan and every artist, and today’s news marks a significant milestone in that journey. We’re not stopping here. We’ve got lots to do and look forward to driving more growth and contributions back to the music industry,” said Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music at YouTube and Google at the time.