.....no charge, for free.....commercials when you watch shows on Amazon Prime Video.....no longer ad free.....


…..they will offer an ad-free tier but will cost $2.99 extra…..


Amazon Plans Commercial Breaks for Prime Video

....Viewers of landmark series on Amazon Prime Video like “The Boys” or “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” will soon be offered something never made available on the service before: TV commercials.

Amazon Prime Video, one of the last mainstream streaming services to eschew the injection of regular commercial breaks into its movies and shows, plans to start letting them run early next year. Amazon follows a host of other streaming hubs — including Disney+, Netflix, and Warner Bros. Discovery’s Max– that also offer ad-supported tiers, a move that suggests the world of streaming may just eventually mirror the world of traditional television in the not-too-distant future.

“The TV industry has really never been able to truly control itself when it comes to aggressive monetization,” says Tim Hanlon, CEO of Vertere Group, a media-industry consultancy.

The company says it plans to run fewer ads on Amazon Prime Video than traditional broadcasters or broadband rivals. Four minutes per hour seems to be a benchmark for the lowest amount of ad time on a streaming platform. Commercials will first appear the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year. Those who want to keep Amazon Prime Video ad-free can still do so — for an additional $2.99 per month in the U.S. on top of the annual subscription to Amazon’s overall Prime service.

Amazon declined to make executives available for comment.

Most media-sector executives agree that streaming video represents the future of the business, and companies ranging from NBCUniversal to Apple have scrambled to make comedies, dramas and sports available to people who no longer watch traditional broadcast or cable TV. And yet, doing so is costly, requiring millions of dollars in content and infrastructure costs — all while new entrants take to the field. Wall Street initially encouraged companies like Paramount Global and Fox Corp. to chase after Netflix, Amazon Prime Video and Disney’s Hulu. Now, investors are demanding timelines of when all the activity will be profitable.

Such pressure has spurred even the most resistant streamers to embrace advertising. Executives from Netflix for years insisted the service would never rely on commercials. Earlier this year, the company planned to mount a glitzy presentation during the TV-industry’s annual “upfront” week, when networks try to carve out deals with Madison Avenue.

Amazon said the decision to run ads during Prime Video selections would help it “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.” In addition to paying millions for the rights to the NFL’s “Thursday Night Football,” Amazon acquired MGM Studios in May of 2021 for $8.5 billion. Over the years, it has launched premium series including “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power,” “Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan,” and “The Wheel of Time.”

Big media companies like CBS and Disney have thrived for decades on two big sources of revenue: advertising and subscription fees from cable and satellite companies. Streaming services, many of them launched with few ads, and, sometimes, none, remove a major source of cash flow.

“It’s a lesson that we all learned in the 1990s when cable really came into its own,” says Hanlon. “The most beautiful business model is media, where you get paid for subscribers and you get paid for advertising.”

Amazon already runs ads elsewhere. Its Freevee service does not require a subscription and lets users view movies and TV series in exchange for looking at ads that tend to interrupt content at sudden and random moments. And the company also seeks ad support for its weekly stream of “Thursday Night Football.” It has also introduced new commercial formats in such areas as its Amazon Fire broadband service. Some ads pair sponsors with movie recommendations, and others allow subscribers to make quick e-commerce purchases.

Amazon’s decision means few if any of the nation’s large streaming services reject ads outright. Apple TV+ does not run ads in its scripted programs and features.

The introduction of a limited number of commercials to streaming services may soon prompt fears that the big media companies will continue to add more, as they have done on their TV networks. “The relatively small ad loads that we see in today’s premium streaming is probably as good as it is going to get,” says Hanlon. He expects commercials in streaming environments to “become more prominent” over time, with bigger ad loads per break and “more opportunities to squeeze in ad messaging along the way, especially if it is perceived as a cost saver for consumers.”

Most media and content platforms have embraced at least some form of advertising, the executive says, and the companies that run such operations will need to govern the flow of commercials, lest consumers perceive streaming to be as stuffed with ads as the TV networks they once watched. “I’m not certain that advertising solves all problems,” he says. “It could make some of them worse.”.....


........giving you free......ads........when you watch..........?!

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I reject your reality and substitute my own!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2023 08:22AM by NewtonMP2100.

I hope there will be a browser plug-in that bypasses them like they already have for freevee. Previously they just bypassed completely, but recently they just auto fast-forward.

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"Defending your own life when in immediate danger to me is a basic right of each person. " Lemon Drop 11/17/2023 03:10 pm

Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008) Private citizens have the right under the Second Amendment to possess an ordinary type of weapon and use it for lawful, historically established situations such as self-defense in a home, even when there is no relationship to a local militia.

"The conclusion is thus inescapable that the history, concept, and wording of the second amendment to the Constitution of the United States, as well as its interpretation by every major commentator and court in the first half-century after its ratification, indicates that what is protected is an individual right of a private citizen to own and carry firearms in a peaceful manner." Right to Keep and Bear Arms: Report of the Subcommittee on the Constitution of the Committee on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Ninety-seventh Congress, Second Session. U.S. Government Printing Office. 1982. Digitized September 30, 2008.

From the NYSRPA v Bruen "Today, we decline to adopt that two-part approach. . . . Despite the popularity of this two-step approach, it is one step too many. Step one of the predominant framework is broadly consistent with Heller, which demands a test rooted in the Second Amendment's text, as informed by history."

I've been looking for a reason to depart thee house of beezee

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!#$@@$#!

composed with both pinkie toes

Ugh... Will there be a way to pay extra for Prime Extreme Plus or defer some shipping speed on some Prime ordered physical items to bypass commercials for a period of time?

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g=

$3 a month more to avoid the 4 minutes of ads every hour. Because of highly limited shopping locally, I really don't have much of a choice for Prime, but I watch very little of its programming and use none of the other services at all.

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“No persons are more frequently wrong, than those who will not admit they are wrong.” -- François de La Rochefoucauld

"Those who cannot accept the past are condemned to revise it." -- Geo. Mathias

The German word for contraceptive is “Schwangerschaftsverhütungsmittel”. By the time you finished saying that, it’s too late

They’re pushing too hard, all of them. The talk among even Joe and Jill Sixpack about the cost of there being more and more ‘a la carte’ streaming services becoming as expensive as cable packages is happening.

It’s only a matter of time until someone drops a revision of the new norm that’s disruptive enough to cause them pain.

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A priest, a rabbit and a minister walk into a bar.
The bartender asks the rabbit "what'll ya have?"
The rabbit says "I dunno. I'm only here because of Autocorrect.


National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
As of July 16, 2022, the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline is now available by simply dialing 988. The previous number, 1-800-273-8255, will remain active.

I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.

Greed knows no bounds.

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perhaps it's a good time to short beezee or buy some future puts.

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composed with both pinkie toes

Can they at least happen during appropriate breaks in the story, like the good old days of OTA TV? The ad-supported things I've seen (small sample size, mind you, either I go ad-free or I don't watch at all, as much as possible) tend to randomly inject them.

Maybe I'll just directly rent the few series I want to see...or is it too much to ask that they keep their ads out of stuff I have specifically paid to watch?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/22/2023 09:45AM by Acer.

Looks like I need to finishing watching the (very few) Amazon shows I want to see before next year.

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It is what it is.

Quote
Acer
Can they at least happen during appropriate breaks in the story, like the good old days of OTA TV? The ad-supported things I've seen (small sample size, mind you, either I go ad-free or I don't watch at all, as much as possible) tend to randomly inject them.

I agree that this is hugely annoying. It probably helps if the shows are written/edited to have these breaks too. It's something I noticed when watching Strange New Worlds (without ads) - I knew exactly where all the commercial breaks would be. But thinking back to Jack Ryan, I didn't have that same experience of knowing where the ad breaks would naturally "be".

This is exactly the SAAS business model. Once folk no longer know about 'perpetual licenses' and head over to 'subscription', they know they can hike the prices.

My son and I are doubling-down on our personal home video library to be sure we have access to the shows we know we like so we CAN dump subscriptions.

Meh. Don't watch prime enough to care.

It felt like the last Jack Ryan was 'made for TV' with fade to blacks giving a strong feeling of 'place commercial here' breaks.

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I am that Masked Man.

All you can do, is all you can do.

There’s trouble — it's time to play the sound of my people.

Your boos mean nothing to me, I've seen what you cheer for.

Insisting on your rights without acknowledging your responsibilities isn’t freedom, it’s adolescence.

I've been to the edge of the map, and there be monsters.

We are a government of laws, not men.

Everybody counts or nobody counts.

When a good man is hurt,
all who would be called good
must suffer with him.

You and I have memories longer than the road that stretches out ahead.

There is no safety for honest men except
by believing all possible evil of evil men.

We don’t do focus groups. They just ensure that you don’t offend anyone, and produce bland inoffensive products. —Sir Jonathan Ive

An armed society is a polite society.
And hope is a lousy defense.

You make me pull, I'll put you down.

I *love* SIGs. It's Glocks I hate.