How do I keep "now playing" from appearing on a lock screen of an Apple Watch?

The below helped me disable the ‘Now Playing’ feature on WatchOS 10

settings > general > return to clock > now playing > custom > always

I am having the same issue, I have updated both the iphone and the apple watch to the most current updates and it still continues even after a complete reboot of both devices. It is killing my watch battery when is apple going to fix this issue?

I ended up just deleting the app, since I never actually use it and it’s a pure negative for me. Can’t launch if it doesn’t exist

I didn’t reply to the right solution. I just deleted the Now Playing app from Watch. That DID work😊

I went into my Apple Watch apps on my watch and located the now playing app (I googled what the app icon looked like as I wasn’t familiar with it) and held the app icon until it had an x and then deleted the app! Problem solved. I also did the same with the news app (although I had to do that through the apps on my iPhone to be able to delete). I didn’t like how news kept popping up on my watch! Hope this helps!

I had to completely delete the app from my watch. Crazy how no matter what I did YouTube kept playing on my watch running the battery down if I was watching it on my phone. Apple really needs to fix this issue!

THANK YOU!! Finally, a solution that ACTUALLY works!

I deleted the play now app and no more battery drain!

Cheers

This is a prime example of how complicated Apple's settings have become, esp on Watch and iPhone.

Many things require settings in multiple places to be addressed and frankly, it's gotten out of control (IMO).

Thinking that a solution to this for some was to just delete the app should show Apple what a mess some of this is.

It’s still playing you just can’t see it when it goes back to clock. Still draining battery

I just bought an apple watch yesterday, and deleting the app is the only thing that worked. What an annoying "feature". I don't even understand why this would be on the watch.

Thanks but did not solve the issue for me. Very frustrating

Did a product manager or researcher actually talk to Apple Watch users before they launched this persistently annoying feature? I don't know why it exists at all, let alone is the default option.

Ended up doing the same thing. Thank you so much. I feel relieve now.

It is greyed out on my watch turned off in my settings and deleted the app from my watch and it still plays on my watch

How did you do this?