If it’s value you’re after from a YouTube Premium subscription on top of ad-free videos and access to YouTube Music, listen up. A report from The Wall Street Journal (via Android Authority) claims that Google’s streamer is looking to add audiobook support. Not the unlicensed kind you’re used to listening to for free on the site, anyway.
A new chapter for Premium?
Google has reportedly been in discussions with publishers to bring select audiobooks to the platform. What that’d look like exactly is still unknown. The report mentions that they could arrive as soon as 2027, likely pitched as a new perk for Premium subscribers. Better yet, it’d be at no extra cost, though we can see those plans changing.
That almost sounds too good a deal. We’d expect YouTube to copy Spotify’s current audiobook strategy, which only allows up to twelve hours of audiobook listening on the Premium Platinum plan per month. Worse, it’s only for the plan manager, not the individual leeches. Should they run out, they have to purchase more at a costly rate.
We also wouldn’t mind seeing an official storefront that’ll let users purchase books outright. It’d be easier to open the YouTube app than, say, Amazon’s Audible app whenever you get some listening time. We doubt it’d be able to match Audible’s one-credit-per-month deal without first tacking on an extra monthly fee. We’d gladly cough up, assuming the price is right. And if YouTube doesn’t try anything silly like pawning off narration to an AI model.
