Did you wake up to ads on your Amazon Prime Video service? You are not alone as Amazon now includes ads for all Prime Video customers unless you pay extra.
Back in September of 2023, Amazon announced that in 2024 it will be adding ads to its base Prime Video plan. Now if you want to continue to get the ad-free experience you have now, you will have to pay extra. It seems Amazon has decided instead of just raising everyone’s price and offering a new, cheaper ad-supported plan, they would instead allow people to opt into the more expensive ad-free option if they want to pay extra.
Here is the message Amazon posted about these new ads on Prime Video:
We are writing to you today about an upcoming change to your Prime Video experience. Starting January 29, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* that you can sign up for here.
Now, Amazon has partnered with IPG Mediabrands to help manage these new ads. This partnership will give IPG the ability to sell ads on Prime Video.
“From our first conversations, IPG Mediabrands has leaned in so that their clients can be among the first brands to engage with the Prime Video streaming audience across the nine countries we’ll serve starting in early 2024,” said Alan Moss, vice president of global sales for Amazon Ads. “When we begin introducing limited ads into Prime Video shows and movies, Prime Video will be one of the largest premium ad-supported services in most countries where we operate. This means we can simultaneously offer brands unmatched reach and frequency to help them achieve their business goals.”
Amazon promises these ads will be significantly fewer ads than cable TV and fewer than most of its competitors. “We’ll take a more iterative approach,” Andrew Bennett, vice president and head of video partnerships at Amazon, told Cord Cutters News in an interview earlier this month.
While Bennett wouldn’t go into details of the launch of ads, he reiterated the company’s vow to serve fewer ads than any other linear or other streaming service. “We’re not going to blow (Prime Video) up over one product feature launch,” he said.
Here is everything we know about Amazon’s new plans for Prime Video.
When and where will Amazon add ads to Amazon Prime Video?
The ads will be added to movies and TV shows starting in January 2024 in U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. Amazon says its ads will be “meaningfully fewer” ads compared to what you would see on cable TV.
How can you keep the commercial free experience you have now on Prime Video?
Amazon says if you want commercial free Prime Video, it will cost you an extra $2.99 per month starting next year. So how will you signup for that option? Amazon says weeks before the ads roll out they will email all customers about the change. That email will include information on how to add the new $2.99 a month fee for commercial free.
So why is Amazon adding ads to Prime Video?
All we know is what Amazon said here:
“To continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time, starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. Ads in Prime Video content will be introduced in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. No action is required for Prime members. We’re not making changes in 2024 to the current price of Prime membership. We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month* for U.S. Prime members and will share pricing for other countries at a later date. We will email Prime members several weeks before ads are introduced into Prime Video with information on how to sign up for the ad-free option if they would like.” Amazon said in a statement on its website.
For now that is all we know as we get closer and Amazon announces a start date along with any other details we will have full coverage.
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