YOUTUBE TO LAUNCH PAID SUBSCIPTION MUSIC SERVICE THIS WEEK!!

YouTube, the world’s No. 1 music destination, will launch a paid subscription music service on Monday.

The service will be called Music Key and it will cost $10 a month after an initial $7.99 discount price period.

The launch for Google-owned YouTube comes amid a fierce debate over the wide access to free streaming music — like that offered by Spotify — and whether it is contributing to a decline in music downloads in particular and overall revenue.

YouTube cleared the last hurdle and will join a red hot sector of the music business after it finally came to an agreement in the past few days with independent record label after months of sometimes acrimonious talks.

Music Key will initially be an invite-only beta service before being rolled out to a wider audience.

It will then compete with Spotify, with 12.5 million paying subscribers and a total of 50 million customers around the globe, and Apple’s Beats Music, among others.
Music Key will give customers the ability to access tunes without being online. The service can also play while other apps are open, it said.

The YouTube service is likely to give a boost to Google’s other existing paid music streaming service, Google Play Music.

In July, Google, run by Chief Executive Larry Page (left), acquired New York-based Songza to provide users with the playlists to suit their moods.

YouTube boss Susan Wojcicki is betting that some subset of the people who viewed Meghan Trainor’s “All About the Base” 250 million times will be willing to hand over credit-card details to see it without a TD Ameritrade pre-roll.

The biggest loser in the mix could be VevoMusic, the industry-owned video destination, analyst Mark Mulligan wrote on his blog.

Meanwhile, Austin Texas-based music lawyer Chris Castle pondered whether the development was aimed at the crowded service space or just “another Google data honeypot for profiling young users?”

Mike Vorhaus, new media analyst at Frank Magid Associates, told The Post that YouTube’s target market is a small subset of heavy YouTube video watchers, saying it was smart for it create a new revenue model for its heaviest users.