Amazon Prime Video is piling on even more advertising

Your Amazon Prime Video experience is about to get a little worse in the coming weeks and months, as the company announced Wednesday that it plans to increase the number of ads shown on the streaming service.

According to a report by The Financial TimesThe changes will come into effect early next year. However, there is little further detail on how many more will be made available and where they might appear. It will start with “a very small amount” of advertising, said Kelly Day, vice president of Prime Video International FTand that the company is seeking a “soft entry into advertising.”

“We know it was a bit of a contrarian approach,” Day said. “But it actually went much better than we even expected.” Namely, because the company has not seen a “boom in waves of churn or cancellations” since it began running interstitial advertising on Prime Video in January 2024. At the time, Amazon claimed that the Running ads “would allow us to continue to invest in compelling content and continue to grow that investment over a long period of time.”

The company expanded its onscreen advertising in May by adding it to the pause screen, and is currently planning to introduce a feature in the near future that will allow you to add items to your cart directly from the video stream. You can remove advertising for the service you already pay between $9 and $15 for each month by adding an extra $3 to each bill.

Many video streaming services have moved from their original ad-free models to an ad-supported format, where they also display advertising in addition to charging a monthly fee. Netflix, for example, eliminated its $12 ad-free plan in July and replaced it with an ad-supported plan that costs $7 per month. Hulu, on the other hand, has always had advertising.

The approach has certainly worked for Amazon, as the company received more than $1.8 billion in endorsements at a preview event in September. The company estimates it will generate up to $4 billion in advertising revenue in 2025.

Source: Financial Times