Because Amazon can: there will be more adverts in Prime Video in 2025
Amazon's streaming service has been showing adverts since the beginning of this year. And Prime Video customers tolerate this. Amazon is taking this as an opportunity to further test the patience of its viewers. More adverts are planned from 2025.
For some months now, anyone who has subscribed to Amazon's Prime Video streaming platform has been annoyed by ad breaks. Although it is a paid subscription, Amazon has unilaterally decided to devalue it by adding around two to 3.5 minutes of adverts per hour. This change has not yet been implemented in Switzerland, but there is no guarantee for this exception.
Advertisements not only appear at the beginning or end of a programme, but also in the middle of a programme. The series and films are then interrupted in blocks of 15 seconds to just over a minute. In the EU, you have to pay around three euros more for ad-free programmes.
And now Amazon is apparently planning to follow suit. Kelly Day, Vice President of Prime International, spoke to the Financial Times about the Prime Video business. In 2025, there will be slightly more adverts than before.
Despite the discontent and the class action lawsuit against Amazon, for example in Germany, there has been no major wave of cancellations. There have been "far, far fewer" cancellations of the service than expected. This is also due to the fact that Prime membership usually not only includes the video service, but also offers other benefits such as free delivery on orders.
The number of those who switched to the more expensive ad-free plan was below the 20 per cent expected by analysts, however. This means that although viewers are dissatisfied, they remain loyal. But they don't want to pay more either.
Amazon wants to further capitalise on its huge reach
Day states that streaming advertising on Prime Video reaches around 200 million viewers worldwide every month. More than half of them live in the USA. Amazon naturally wants to milk this cow, or rather these many cows. Revenue from all of Amazon's advertising business grew by 20 per cent year-on-year to 12.8 billion US dollars (around 11.6 billion euros) in the second quarter of 2024. Revenue can be further increased through more advertising.
Higher costs should also be a reason for more advertising, says Day. Amazon has invested more in new content for Prime Video, for example in rights for live sports programmes.
Details are not yet known
It's worth noting that Day doesn't specifically mention which countries outside the USA will see more adverts. However, as she mentions global user numbers, it can be assumed that Amazon will experiment with the amount and duration of adverts in all markets.
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