If you’re already fed up with the amount of ads you see on the Amazon Prime Video streaming service, we have bad news. You may soon be forced to watch twice as many ads between movies and TV shows, reports AdWeek.
When the streaming service began showing ads earlier this year, the commercial breaks were supposed to be between 2 and 3.5 minutes per hour. In a new email to advertisers, Amazon now states that the commercial breaks have been expanded to 4 to 6 minutes per hour.
Amazon has already announced its plans to extend ad breaks to investors, but not yet to subscribers. It’s unclear when the change will roll out to Prime Video and whether that figure will hold.
The streaming service reportedly didn’t notice a major drop in subscribers when it began showing ads, but it now remains to be seen how much advertising subscribers are willing to put up with.
Why are more ads being shown?
It’s common for streaming services to start with a small number of ads to rope in new customers and avoid alienating existing customers. Once the subscriber base is large enough, they can then gradually increase the advertising load (which has backfired for companies like Roku).
The more people switch away from traditional, linear television offerings to streaming services, the easier it is for providers to implement both price hikes and increased advertising without risking major losses in subscription numbers.
Companies like Amazon naturally want to earn as much money as possible through advertising per subscriber, to finance further productions and line the pockets of shareholders.