Commercials Are Streaming’s New Norm, and Creators Aren’t Happy: “It’s Almost Worse Than Broadcast”
Commercials Are Streaming’s New Norm, and Creators Aren’t Happy: “It’s Almost Worse Than Broadcast”
As Amazon becomes the latest platform to push an ad-supported tier, TV writers greet this retro model with frustration and, in some cases, disdain: “I thought 'Nine Perfect Strangers' with commercials was horrible,” says David E. Kelley of his Hulu show with breaks.
recently cited that 40 percent of all new sign-ups opt for ads
yeah no, sorry. thats not an endorsement that people prefer ads, thats a testament to people being fucking broke. thanks for making their lives just a little but shittier though.
But if they are broke, why are they paying for TV? The last thing I would do is pay for streaming when money was tight...
I get your point to a degree, but come on, they are saying it simply isn't worth it. 3 streaming services with ads is better than 1 without or something like that.
I mean there are a large number of free services with ads, so that has to be what they are thinking.
So creatives aren't happy. Customers aren't happy. Broadcasters seem happy.
End-stage enshittification confirmed?
Customers keep paying though. As long as that keeps happening they'll keep doing it.
I canceled cable service for 2 reasons: 1) commercials 2) watching 4 channels and paying for 100
Now with streaming, commercials are back and Im finding it harder and harder to locate decent things to watch.
Not sure where to turn next
You have 2 options. Buy the media on discs, or join us on the high seas.
I’ve got my own Plex server but I’ve seen everything on it multiple times. Time to dust off the old eyepatch and peg leg, I guess
Sail the seas, m'boy!
With the writers and actors strikes this year, I think it'll probably be slim pickens until summer or potentially autumn.
What I want to know is how much money could insurance companies (cough, Liberty Mutual, cough) POSSIBLY be saving people when they are buying ads on every video on Youtube.
I don’t know why but those Liberty Mutual commercials go in one ear and right out the other for me. I have YouTube Red so don’t know those but they sponsor live sports like crazy and one game this year, I was like, “What’s that emu about?” And my friend said, “Dude, they’ve been showing the emu commercials non-stop for like 5 years.”
I just googled it and they debuted the “LiMu Emu and Doug” campaign in 2019. So, it was 4 years before I noticed the emu. It’s good I can ignore ads but I would have definitely died in The Emu Wars.
You may have an issue with selective attention. Have you tried the test?
Libbity bibbity
I wish I could see a liberty ad.
The only crap I see is "before you buy something on Amazon, see this" garbage.
It's guaranteed to be worse: TV episodes are completely structured around whether the creators expect ads, and where in the runtime the ad will be (so they can resolve or tease a plot point before them).
The addition of ads, or having more ad breaks than the original transmitter of a show had, will break the structure.
And then of course there's the 'Spotify question': are these ads genuinely supporting a subscription, or are they there to annoy you into paying for one by disrupting the flow of an episode as much as possible?
The abrupt commercials take away so much art in the craft.
Welp, Paramount Plus has the Super Bowl and then Halo S2, which looks like it might be worth watching. After that it goes on the canceled pile with Netflix and "Max."
I only have Hulu and Disney Plus at this point because they're bundled with my phone plan, and Prime because of Amazon. I have Apple TV+ during MLS season.
But otherwise I'll just stick to my Blu-ray collection and sign up for Netflix ad-free or whatever for two months every two years and binge everything worth watching. My backlog is long enough to last me years at this point.
We should just vote with our wallets.... actually I think I need a new wallet, but right after that yeah.
This is the best summary I could come up with:
After a swift click on “not now,” this viewer cued up one of the more successful titles currently gracing Amazon’s roster — the second season of beefcake vigilante drama Reacher.
Interruptions, which included a spot for another series (Hudson & Rex, starring a German Shepherd detective) and a reminder from the folks at Intuit Turbotax that filling season has commenced, were indeed limited.
“We fought so hard to get rid of commercials,” says Alan Poul, executive producer and director of Max original Tokyo Vice which returns for a second season on Feb. 8.
Paramount expands its own ad-supported tier internationally later in 2024 — and though no official plans have been announced, recent hires at Apple TV+ suggest the tech behemoth will eventually introduce ads as well.
David E. Kelley, the one-time broadcast golden boy who gave audiences Picket Fences, Chicago Hope and Ally McBeal before pivoting to premiere outlets like HBO (Big Little Lies) and Netflix (The Lincoln Lawyer), seems similarly disenchanted.
Netflix, which recently cited that 40 percent of all new sign-ups opt for ads, announced the “retirement” of its least expensive commercial-free tier in the coming second quarter.
The original article contains 1,205 words, the summary contains 191 words. Saved 84%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Where did y'all think the extra money to comply with SAG-AFTRA and the WGA's demands' was gonna come from? Subscription revenue is not elastic relative to the content viewed, so that residual money has to come from somewhere.
Bullshiiiiiiiiiiiiit
ahaha