To celebrate 20 years of YouTube, Google announced a handful of upcoming features on a couple of different YouTube products that you could soon take advantage of. From YouTube TV to YouTube Music to YouTube on TVs, we have incoming changes that sound like much-needed improvements.
The first that we need to point out, even if we cancelled our YouTube TV subscription years ago and never looked back after all of those price increases, is a custom multiview feature. Yes, Google is finally going to give YouTube TV the option to customize your own multiview setups. Since releasing multiview for the first time back in 2023 during the NCAA basketball tournament, Google has only ever let you select from pre-made multiview setups for non-sports content, not a setup of your choosing.
Google didn’t tell us exactly when YouTube TV subscribers will be able to customize their own non-sports setups, but did at least narrow it down to “the next few weeks.” They mentioned subscribers being able to “experiment” with it, which could mean it’ll be a feature you’ll have to enable. There will also be a “small group of popular channels” that you’ll be able to choose from, with more channels arriving over the coming months.
Another new feature is referenced as a “TV viewing upgrade,” which should just mean an improved YouTube app on TVs and bigger screens. Google describes the changes as “Easier navigation, playback, quality tweaks, plus streamlined access to comments, channel info, and subscribing.”
As for the other couple of new features to be on the lookout for, Ask Music is now available for all YouTube Premium and YouTube Music users as a way to get personalized radio stations on Android and iOS by describing the music you’re in the mood for. Google is also upping speeds to 4x playback speed for YouTube Premium subscribers. This is rolling out now.
Happy birthday, YouTube.
// YouTube
They need to improve the audio delay when switching between multiview channels. You switch because you see a big play happening and it takes 2-3 seconds for the audio to come in. And no ability to rewind unless you're recording that game and switch it to full screen, unless I'm missing something.
Have they improved the ability to scroll forward in the program guide on the phone app yet?
We had multiview and pick your own channels (any) on PS Vue wayyyyy back in the day. For all the money Google has, holy sh*t are they slow to roll out "new" features. I picked back up TYTV because I got my son really into sports. But now that I've been on it, I find out that my local basketball and Baseball team aren't really viewable. So now I'm going to try Sling again, even though, years ago I tried Sling and it wasn't very good. I just want to watch sports and it's still a PIA in 2025.
Same thing with phones. Had a Moto unit that I was able to change the look color and attributes of the top navigation bar and now am stuck with small font, colorless, less info and basically, boring. Love how they go backwards……