YouTube announces non-ad paid service called YouTube Red

$9.99 a month service also includes watching offline and background play

YouTube has gone the route of Spotify, Netflix and other premium subscription-based streaming services by introducing a "pay monthly" model, named YouTube Red.

YouTube Red, Google announced on its official YouTube blog today, is "giving fans exactly what they want" by offering users the opportunity to cut out adverts by paying $9.99 for the privilege.

It may be more accurate to say that YouTube is actually giving fans what they were often taking anyway, as a wealth of third party application and plugins exist to block advert rolls on YouTube. As such, the streaming video site is adding a series of other perks to try to sweeten the deal.

As well as removing adverts, YouTube Red also lets users save video content to watch offline on phones and tablets, as well as playing videos in the background on mobile devices, again helping it become a direct rival to Spotify. This could prove especially potent when combined with the also-announced YouTube Music, which in effect is just Google's existing Play Music service rolled into YouTube Red. YouTube Gaming, an attempt to take on popular videogames streaming site Twitch, will also exist in an ad-free form for those who opt to pay for YouTube Red.

YouTube is also planning subscription-based unique content beginning next year, promising "member-only access to new, original shows and movies from some of YouTube's biggest creators".

It remains to be seen to what extent YouTube Red will affect content creators on YouTube, but Google has already made it clear that "partner" creators who earn ad revenue now but don't agree to the revenue share deal for YouTube Red - which basically lets YouTube decide how much it pays rights holders from the subscription fees - will have their existing videos completely hidden from view on both YouTube Red and the regular, ad-supported YouTube.

YouTube Red won't exist as a new app on mobile devices, but will simply manifest as a new set of options once a user logs in their account as usual.