Amazon will increase the number of Prime Video ads next year.
The company explained that it had not seen a sharp decline in subscribers since advertisements were introduced to the platform earlier this year. Now, the company said, it will now try to bring more brands to the streaming service.
Kelly Day, vice-president of Prime Video International, explained to the Financial Times that the advertising “load” on the streamer would “ramp up a little bit more into 2025.”
Amazon has now joined rival platforms such as Netflix and Paramount+, which offer an ad-supported tier to customers at a lower price than subscriptions that are ad-free.
Day described how Prime Video had intentionally launched with a “very light ad load” — including no commercials in the middle of programs — which “exceeded customers expectations in terms of what the ad experience would be like.”
The streamer automatically switched its more than 200 million global subscribers to the ad-supported service, unless they opted to pay extra for the premium content that does not include commercials.
“We know it was a bit of a contrarian approach to take to things from us. But … it’s actually gone much better than we even anticipated. We haven’t really had a groundswell of people churning out or cancelling,” Day said.
She did not disclose how many subscribers had chosen to spend more on the ad-free service but insists that it is less than the figure of 20 percent that some analysts have estimated.
