YouTube announced a desktop test of a dedicated “Upcoming live and premieres” section in the Subscriptions feed on September 14, 2020. It was meant to collect scheduled events from channels you subscribed to, put the soonest ones first, and let you set a reminder. YouTube’s current Help guidance points viewers to the Live tab to find upcoming streams and Premieres; official sources reviewed here do not say whether the separate Subscriptions section is still available.
What the YouTube test added
In a September 14, 2020 entry reproduced in YouTube’s experiment archive, TeamYouTube described testing a new Subscriptions-feed section called “Upcoming live and premieres.” It would show scheduled live streams and Premieres from channels a viewer subscribed to, separately from the latest uploads normally shown in the feed.
The announcement said the test began on desktop with a small group of users while YouTube gathered feedback. It did not specify countries, eligibility rules, how long the test would run, its results, or whether the feature would be rolled out widely.
How the section was meant to work
- Collect scheduled events: It gathered upcoming live streams and Premieres from subscribed channels.
- Separate events from uploads: Scheduled events appeared in their own section rather than mixed into the latest uploads.
- Show the nearest event first: The announcement described the ordering as reverse chronological, with events happening soonest at the top.
- Offer a reminder: Viewers could click a bell to set a reminder for an event going live.
How to find upcoming streams and Premieres now
YouTube’s current computer guidance for watching live streams says to open YouTube.com and select Live at the top. That page is the documented route for browsing upcoming and current live streams and Premieres; select Notify me on an event to request a notification when it goes live.
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| Detail | 2020 Subscriptions test | Current Help guidance |
|---|---|---|
| Where to look | A separate “Upcoming live and premieres” section in Subscriptions. | The Live tab on YouTube.com. |
| Event ordering | The soonest scheduled events first, according to the archived announcement. | Not stated in the cited computer Help guidance. |
| Alert control | A bell to set a reminder, according to the archived announcement. | Notify me on an event. |
The current guidance describes where to browse and how to request an alert. It does not confirm that the older Subscriptions section remains available or that its bell control is still offered.
What affects live-stream notifications
YouTube’s subscriber notification troubleshooting guidance says subscribers need both All notifications enabled for the channel and YouTube notifications enabled for their account and device to receive live-stream notifications. For a stream using an encoder, YouTube says those subscribers are notified after the stream is public and YouTube detects that it is live. A public scheduled stream that has not yet been detected as live will not trigger that notification yet.
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Those conditions explain YouTube’s general live-stream notifications; they do not establish that the 2020 test’s reminder mechanism still exists.
Where scheduled events do not appear
YouTube’s live-stream guidance says scheduled live streams and Premieres do not appear in Shorts. If you are looking for an upcoming event, use the Live tab rather than expecting to find it among Shorts.
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What is—and is not—known about the test’s status
The archived announcement establishes that YouTube tested the dedicated section with a small desktop group in 2020. Current general Help pages document the Live tab and the Notify me control, but the official pages cited here do not establish whether the Subscriptions-feed test was later rolled out, discontinued, or remains available to some viewers. It is safest to treat it as a historical test, not a feature guaranteed to appear in your Subscriptions feed.
Why YouTube highlights live content
YouTube reported that, on average, over 30% of daily logged-in viewers watched live content in Q2 2025. That figure appears in the company’s September 2025 live-streaming update. It describes live viewing overall—not use of the 2020 Subscriptions experiment or viewing of upcoming events specifically.
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Live streams and Premieres are different formats
YouTube defines a live stream as media broadcast in real time. A Premiere is a new video watched with its creator and community in real time. Both can be scheduled and can surface as upcoming events, but the formats are distinct, as explained in YouTube’s live-stream Help guidance.
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