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YouTube will have fewer ad breaks on TV — but the ads are getting longer
(www.theverge.com)
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this post was submitted on 14 Dec 2023
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My major grip with the current ads are that they are obtrusive and repetitive.
On broadcast TV, I dont mind ads as much because the shows were written, filmed, and edited with predictable ad breaks in mind. I have a good idea how long the ad break will be and when they happen. Makes it easy to plan bathroom breaks, drink refills, or discuss what we're watching.
On Youtube, the ads seemingly pop up at random, usually in the middle of a sentence. Sometimes, there will be 2 ad breaks, and other times, there are 4 ad breaks for similar videos. If youtube would make ads consistent (30 second ad break at the half way point for < 10 mins vids; 15 second at break at 1/3 of the way through the video and a second one at 2/3 of the video for 10 - 30 min vids; etc) and content creators would edit their vidoes for these predetermined ad breaks, they would be much more palatable.
I get that the ad pool is based on tracking data/video content, but watching the same pool of 3 or 4 ads makes me less likely to buy something. Throw in some random ads in there, too, to break up the monotony.
This seems like a crazy amount of ads to me. On live TV, I wouldn't expect more than one ad break every 15 minutes of broadcast, with fewer on things like feature films. YouTube is mostly short form content; there's no reason why there couldn't just be ads at the beginning for the vast majority of content, with only the longer videos needing a different approach. If you're mostly watching <20 minute videos, you're still getting a similar number of "ad breaks" per viewing hour.
The idea of having a 30 second ad break 5 minutes into a 10 minute video would 100% be unacceptable to me.
It was just an example of different ad structures for different length videos, not anything close to a final proposal. I mostly watch very long form content (>30mins), so my example is probably not the best for shorter vids.
It's sadly not when compared to live TV. The thing to remember about live TV ad breaks is that commercials are longer, and so are the breaks. On TV, each commercial is closer to 30 seconds, and the breaks are closer to 3 minutes. ~12 mins/hour (4x 3 mins breaks per hour) for TV vs ~3 mins/hour (6x 30s breaks) for my example. Even if youtube doubled up and put 2x 30s ad breaks in a 10 mins vid, that's still 6min/hour of ads.
Front-loading the ads makes sense for shorter vids. I chose the middle because youtube seems to want to put them during the video, even on the shorter vids. I chose 30 seconds based on ads being 2x 15 seconds long each, which is what I normally see while watching Youtube without adblockers. Maybe prioritize shorter ads in shorter vids? So, 2x 5 second ads instead of the 2x 15 second ads.