Amazon is said to have doubled advertising on Prime Video

When Amazon switched its streaming service Prime Video to an advertising model, users had to endure around three and a half minutes of commercial breaks per hour. Recently, some users have had the impression that more advertising is now being shown. A report by industry magazine AdWeek confirms this: according to the report, Amazon has almost doubled the length of ad breaks.

AdWeek examined documents and spoke to Prime Video advertising customers for its report. According to the report, the “ad load” for Prime Video is now between four and six minutes per hour –. In the worst-case scenario, Amazon has therefore almost doubled the duration of advertising. According to AdWeek, the “four to six minutes” figure comes directly from an email from Amazon to an advertising partner.

3 euros per month for ad-free streaming

The fact that Amazon wants to increase the duration of advertising on Prime Video was already announced last year. Amazon manager Kelly Day hinted at the move in an interview with the Financial Times: The statements should go down well with investors. Amazon has not yet communicated the increase in advertising time directly to its customers – The change would be much less popular with this target group.

Amazon Prime Video was ad-free for a long time with a Prime subscription before the tech giant switched to an ad-based system in February 2024. The prices were not adjusted. If you want to watch Prime Video ad-free since then, you have to pay €3 per month on top of the Prime price of €9 per month.

Amazon is following the trend with its advertising strategy: competing streaming services such as Netflix, Disney+ and Paramount+ have also integrated advertising-based streaming subscriptions into their portfolio in recent years and months. The advertising options are often more lucrative for providers than conventional subscriptions without ads.

(dahe)