Amazon Prime Video has started adding commercials to its content from today, June 17, marking a significant change for its subscribers. The move comes after growing competition in the video-on-demand market and aims to generate additional revenue through ad placements. According to the company, Prime Video will now show 4 to 6 minutes of commercials for every hour of content viewed on the platform.
Prime Video ad duration While announcing the start of showing ads in between the show every hour, the company mentioned “Meaningfully Fewer” ads. However, it hasn’t clarified how many ads will appear while watching the content. This is what Amazon said in the email: “ We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than TV channels and other streaming services.”
A recent report has revealed that Amazon can show 4 minutes to 6 minutes of ads every hour. This means, if you watch a movie on Prime Video that has a runtime of 3 hours, then you may have to see ads of up to 18 minutes. Which is a lot of ads and might get annoying.
However, Amazon has also announced an ad-free option for users.
How you can go ad-free
Some viewers have raised questions about fairness, arguing that paying for Prime should come with an uninterrupted viewing experience. Others joke that the service is starting to resemble a traditional TV channel, adding commercials alongside delivery benefits.
To avoid seeing these ads, Amazon is offering a way to go ad-free. Viewers can pay an additional Rs. 129 per month or Rs 699 per year, in addition to their existing Prime membership, which costs Rs 299 per month or Rs 1,499 per year in India. Once this add-on is subscribed to, Prime profiles originating from that account will no longer show commercials during on-demand content. However, some titles may still play short promotional trailers, although these can be skipped.
Where to activate the ad-free option
Amazon has made this ad-free option available through its website and the Prime Video app for Fire TV, smart TVs, game consoles, and set-top boxes. To activate it, users need to navigate to “Your Account” or “Settings” and select “Go Ad Free.”
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