YouTube TV now lets you listen even after locking your phone

If you’re a YouTube Premium subscriber, then you’re probably familiar with the background play feature. It allows you to continue listening to a video even after you lock your device or navigate away from the app. Now that fan favorite feature is making its way to the YouTube TV app.

Previously, background play was a feature that you could only use on YouTube as a Premium subscriber. Since you also pay for YouTube TV, you would think the feature would be on there as well. But that wasn’t the case until now.

As discovered by users on Reddit, the feature has now come to YouTube TV on Android. Based on the reports, it appears Google has been slowly rolling out background play to YouTube TV over the last couple of weeks. We have tested this out on our own devices and can confirm that background play is working on Android.

A commenter mentioned that they noticed background play working on their iPhone 14 Pro. However, the feature reportedly stopped working for them. We were unable to confirm if the feature is available on iOS.

Since it has been a slow release, there’s a possibility you may not have the feature yet. However, more and more people should have access to it in the coming weeks.