'Pause Ads' Creep Onto Hulu, Peacock and Max As Streamers Seek New Revenue (variety.com) 53
Brian Steinberg reports via Variety: So-called "pause ads" -- they only turn up a few seconds after a viewer has decided to halt the programming, and not every time one does -- are seeing new movement in the streaming world, with the format appearing more frequently on Hulu since July, according to Josh Mattison, senior vice president of revenue management and operations for Disney Advertising. Pause ads are also in motion in venues such as NBCUniversal's Peacock and Warner Bros. Discovery's Max.
As more media companies seek to goose subscriber rates by offering cheaper ad-supported versions of their streaming services, this type of commercial may become more handy. One of the main attractions of streaming, after all, is that it boasts fewer traditional commercials than its linear TV counterpart. The industry hopes that a pause ad -- other "out of pod" commercial experiences are also in development -- can appear on screen without upsetting a subscriber who gets viscerally roiled by the prospect of a glut of typical TV spots.
Others have also found ways to work ads into the moments when streaming fans come to a stopping point. NBCUniversal's Peacock launched with pause ads, says Peter Blacker, executive vice president of streaming and data products for NBCUniversal's ad-sales division, while Warner Bros. Discovery's Max introduced them in 2022, says Ryan Gould, head of digital ad sales and client partnerships at the company. No one has been holding back on the new format. Hulu has experimented with pauses since at least 2018, and an early version of the idea surfaced last decade when Coca-Cola and Universal Pictures tested concepts with ReplayTV, an early backer of digital video recording technology. Coke, which once used the slogan "the pause that refreshes" to great effect, and Charmin, the Procter & Gamble toilet tissue that can offer succor during many breaks in TV viewing, tested the format with Hulu in 2019.
As more media companies seek to goose subscriber rates by offering cheaper ad-supported versions of their streaming services, this type of commercial may become more handy. One of the main attractions of streaming, after all, is that it boasts fewer traditional commercials than its linear TV counterpart. The industry hopes that a pause ad -- other "out of pod" commercial experiences are also in development -- can appear on screen without upsetting a subscriber who gets viscerally roiled by the prospect of a glut of typical TV spots.
Others have also found ways to work ads into the moments when streaming fans come to a stopping point. NBCUniversal's Peacock launched with pause ads, says Peter Blacker, executive vice president of streaming and data products for NBCUniversal's ad-sales division, while Warner Bros. Discovery's Max introduced them in 2022, says Ryan Gould, head of digital ad sales and client partnerships at the company. No one has been holding back on the new format. Hulu has experimented with pauses since at least 2018, and an early version of the idea surfaced last decade when Coca-Cola and Universal Pictures tested concepts with ReplayTV, an early backer of digital video recording technology. Coke, which once used the slogan "the pause that refreshes" to great effect, and Charmin, the Procter & Gamble toilet tissue that can offer succor during many breaks in TV viewing, tested the format with Hulu in 2019.
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Arrr, me copies don't do that.
Yup, when I hit pause with Kodi, it just pauses. Imagine that. It's so weird to think people actually spend money every month for an inferior user experience.
Re:Arrr (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't mind paying for my content, but paying AND still getting ads will get a quick cancellation. We cancelled Hulu years back for violating this.
I guess I really want to know just how much they are getting paid to show these ads?
the moives have like 10-30 mins of ad's befor they (Score:2)
the movies have like 10-30 mins of ad's before they start.
Just do them all at the start and not midway.
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the movies have like 10-30 mins of ad's before they start.
Sounds like the old days at the drive-in movies, not to mention the old days when going to a walk-in movie theater was truly a treat and not a nasty pickpocketing like it is today.
Re:Arrr (Score:5, Insightful)
>"I don't mind paying for my content, but paying AND still getting ads will get a quick cancellation."
Bingo.
And I don't know about you, but often when I pause something it is because I WANT TO SEE SOMETHING ON THE SCREEN. That is not possible if there is some stupid ad or promo or other crap covering it.
NO ADS.
Two additional rants
1) I can't stand autoplay. You may suggest something, but do not automatically play it. Don't play the next episode when one finishes and don't play a "preview" when I am selecting something from a menu.
2) Fix your damn audio. If you are a streaming service in 2023 and have source material with surround sound, STEREO IS NOT ACCEPTABLE. OTA has been 5.1 for what, 27 YEARS NOW?
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I'll add a third rant to your list, as someone with friends in the business:
3) The default shouldn't be SKIPPING the credits. If the user wants to skip the credits, whatever, you can't force them to watch but it speaks volumes about your consideration for the people that literally built your business that you feel the need to steal their acknowledgement for your own purposes.
It's multiple extra steps on practically every platform just to watch the credits if you're inclined to do it. One extra step to n
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I don't mind paying for my content, but paying AND still getting ads will get a quick cancellation. We cancelled Hulu years back for violating this.
It isn't just SVOD. It's literally everything that you pay for. You know what's particularly galling to me? Paying real money for a publication -- I'll use the NY Times as an example, but nearly ALL of them do this -- and then finding annoying intrusive ads crammed into your content.
It's particularly upsetting as an HSP [additudemag.com]. Do you have any idea how fucking annoying it is to have a color scheme worked out on your device of choice to be able to read without disruption/overstimulation/instant headache imme
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>"Do you have any idea how fucking annoying it is to have a color scheme worked out on your device of choice to be able to read without disruption/overstimulation/instant headache immediately ruined by some REALLY BRIGHT AND REALLY FLASHY ADVERTISEMENT?!?"
Install and use Firefox and uBlock Origin. And also set video autoplay to never, and set "image.animation_mode" to "none" to disable animated GIF/PNG. 98% of the nightmare will be gone.
I can't use the web without that. ANY motion on the screen while I
Re: Arrr (Score:2)
Don't find those. (Score:1)
They are like the ads on a kindle, yea I see them when I am turning it on but so what on that, they don't interfere or cause me to pause what I want to see or read.
What does bug me about them are how non-personalized they are. Especially for amazon why am I getting all these ads for romance novels, I have never read one or purchased one. Give me ads of things I am interested in, give
Re:Don't find those. (Score:5, Insightful)
On YouTube, I frequently pause the video so I can better read a piece of text or get a better look at something. I can't stand it when I pause the video, and the UI obscures part of the screen. It's especially annoying as pausing the video completely obscures the subtitles... because screw deaf people.
Not everyone pauses something because they want to make a sandwich.
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Yep, I hate that too. At least on YouTube it is just the tiny controls/jog at the bottom. Rumble just pushed a change on their site and now it dims the ENTIRE video screen and puts huge controls in the MIDDLE OF THE SCREEN. AND IT SLOWLY FADES OUT when resume play, just to be even more annoying. Oh, and to be even MORE annoying, you can't just click anywhere to resume, it MUST be on the play button now. Yeah, you can click ANYWHERE to pause, but ONLY on the play button to resume. What genius thought o
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Could it be that you get my messages? I have an adblocker and I don't get any.
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YouTube has been telling me i have an adblocker before almost every video (and I do), i click "Submit feedback" and copy and paste "Fuck you" until my heart is content, submit feedback, go back to video and click play, no ads :)
you can of course skip the sending feedback part, but I want them to know how i feel.
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I can't stand it when I pause the video, and the UI obscures part of the screen.
Don't forget the video suggestions that superimpose over the last few seconds of a YouTube video. Even without a pause the video is obscured -- if there was something significant at the very end of your video, too bad.
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With Hulu and Netflix, hitting the back button on my remote will clear the UI and give a full, clear shot of the screen. This works with the built in streaming apps on my Samsung TV and with the Roku box (Roku was best move I made re: streaming). BTW, this doesn't work on Paramount+: the back button takes you back out the video that you're watching.
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I mainly pause for these things:
To read the subtitles (when watching Spanish content with Spanish subs) when they go too fast.
To halt the film to discuss a scene with the girl friend
To halt because I need to take a call / concentrate on something else.
Any service that would not let me pause video would get cancelled quickly. It's bad enough that
there's too much navigation on screen when you pause which covers up subtitles.
Will quickly become ineffective (Score:2)
After a few experiences with this, people will soon figure out it's best to hit pause then mute.
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Ay... This is why media creators/content distributors should Never have been allowed to make their content exclusive to a particular Software app or kind of client hardware. The moment the app gets integrated with Televisions... You can bet they'll add some feature to "Block the mute and power off buttons" from taking affect until after the Ad finishes playing.
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You'll find that, no matter what you do and no matter how you try to tie down the TV, there is still the matter that at some point, you need to pump that audio out of the box and the power into it.
And on both cables, I'm the final arbiter who says whether electrons flow or not.
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Repeal DMCA. 1201 is what effectively mandated product-tying between content and its player.
Fight Back (Score:2)
There has to be a way to stop this idiocy. If we don't, its pretty clear that Idiocracy was telling the future.
In my world view, being force fed opinions of others is a terrible idea for the human mind and the human race.
If money is the avenue, then all of the worst of humanity is what ends up being advertised back to ourselves. Its a recursive problem.
--
If you stop at general math, you're only going to make general math money. - Snoop Dogg
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If we don't, its pretty clear that Idiocracy was telling the future.
Idiocracy is not just telling the future - it is telling the present. We're 90% of the way there.
At this point the cost of stopping the Idiocy is so high that people wouldn't want to.
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>"There has to be a way to stop this idiocy. If we don't, its pretty clear that Idiocracy was telling the future."
1) Your feedback. Tell the company how you are unhappy about it.
2) Your wallet. Cancel service and make sure they know why.
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If you cancel our service, it can only mean that you're a dirty, dirty thief and downloader. You HAVE TO be. It's unfathomable that you somehow can survive without our crap!
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"Sounds like grounds for a search warrant to me. They cancelled the service and object to ads? Break it down!"
Liquidate everything (Score:2)
They have outlived their usefulness. Liquidate everything. Start over from scratch. Blackball anyone that worked at the previous companies marketing departments and C-suite.
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As long as these black balls are heavy, tied to some sort of body part and they then take a swim, we can talk.
im dropping paramount+ over this (Score:3)
I reached out to Paramount+ for an explanation of what they think 'ad-free' means and they ghosted me. So... okay, when this season of a show I'm watching finishes up in a couple of weeks I'm dropping them. It's not just the pause-screen ads, they have unskippable ads for their other shows.
No.
No.
No.
NO ADS. I'm paying full price. No ads, no ads, and no ads. No ads Paramount, no ads. FFS
on another note- disneyplus has decided to go from $80 a year to $110. They got the axe from me as well.
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I reached out to Paramount+ for an explanation of what they think 'ad-free' means and they ghosted me.
If you have a contract for a service that specifically says "no ads" or is advertised (the irony) as such, you may have grounds for a small-claims lawsuit to get your subscription fee back. False advertisement and all that. Maybe the FCC is even interested.
Re: im dropping paramount+ over this (Score:1)
Re: im dropping paramount+ over this (Score:2)
Or I didn't think a 30% price increase was warranted.
Re: im dropping paramount+ over this (Score:1)
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Disney went up 30% THIS YEAR. As in $80 last year, $110 this year.
Re: im dropping paramount+ over this (Score:1)
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Arrr, matey.
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Prefer not to.. ..but yeah, not sure why they want a repeat of history.
Keep hoping (Score:2)
I'm roiled. Eff your ads
This is how to get people back to the high seas... (Score:2)
Throwing more ads, hiking prices, chasing down people who might have two TVs in separate locations is just going to ensure that we go back to the mid 2000s where people are back to the torrents, Congress will be proposing more SOPA/PIPA laws (which mean that people just run to offshore seedboxes and VPNs, and ultimately ensure true pedos, criminals and terrorists are out of reach by police, in the hunt for IP violators), which only will result in further advances in the cat and mouse game. Ultimately, peop
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There is also the fact that the world really is caring less about American IP, or IP in general, especially with wars going on, both externally and internally, and a general reactionary shift across the globe, so in some places, piracy of IP may be something to be encouraged as a middle finger to "the West".
"may be" ?
Yandex, the Russian Google, is possibly the world's largest pirate site. Want to watch any movie and don't mind Russian subtitles? Search for it in Yandex and stream it right from there.
I'm pretty sure the arab and chinese worlds have similar sites.
Soon These Streaming Services Will Catch Up (Score:2)
They are worse than you think (Score:1)
poison (Score:2)
One of the main attractions of streaming, after all, is that it boasts fewer traditional commercials than its linear TV counterpart.
Until it doesn't. We already moved down from "no ads" to "fewer ads".
It'll increase until it's at the "max that average viewers tolerate" level of TV. Then something new will appear, without ads, and people will go there. Repeat.
When shit like this gets too bad.. (Score:5, Funny)
I introduce 'Pause Subscription'.
I haven't yet discovered what it takes to make me un-pause.
Nope (Score:2)
Once streaming became a thing, I stopped watching ads period. I can't even watch cable or broadcast TV anymore. The ads are just too jarring. Once a streaming service introduces mandatory ads (on pause or otherwise), I'm gone.
Ads prevent me from buying the product. (Score:3)
The more ways an advertiser tries to get their ad in front of me, the more likely I am to add that product to a list of products NEVER TO BUY EVER. I maintain this list on paper and consult it frequently.