Prime Video Drama – Hidden Price Increase Incoming
Subscribers of Prime Video will have to be prepared to coexist with more advertising in the future. The time per hour reserved for broadcasting advertising will significantly increase, but subscribers of the streaming service will be kept in the dark about the change.
With its Prime Video service, Amazon, alongside Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, YouTube, and others, has developed one of the most successful video streaming services. Since 2022, the company has been charging a monthly fee of $8.99 for this service. However, it soon seemed that the revenue was no longer enough. Last year, another measure was implemented — at the expense of users — which led to an increase in revenue. Since February 5, 2024, Amazon has relied on the display of advertising.
Initially, around two to three and a half minutes per hour were reserved for paid advertisements, interrupting films and series. Around 150 million users access the Prime Video service currently. If you want to avoid the interruptions, you have to dig deeper into your pocket and fork out an additional $2.99 per month.
Advertising load has doubled in 18 months
At the same time, services for advertising customers have increased to further differentiate themselves from the competition — apparently with much success, according to Adweek. Interest in the advertising opportunities on the Amazon platform is so great that the company has almost doubled the time per hour reserved for advertising after just 18 months.
According to the report, streams on the video platform are now interrupted for four to six minutes per hour to include advertising messages. This is intended to bring advertising times in line with those of the competition. Disney+, Netflix, and Paramount+ do display ads for four to six minutes per hour.
No further information for users
Apart from the associated deterioration in the quality of Amazon's service, the company's information policy is particularly worthy of criticism. To avoid stirring up unwanted attention, Amazon has only communicated the move to advertising customers at the end of 2024.
However, the actual users of the service were kept in the dark about the increase in hourly advertising time, presumably to avoid causing discontentment among subscribers. Ultimately, the scope of the hourly ad breaks was merely adjusted to match those of the competition. When it comes to streaming videos alone, the monthly prices for Disney+, Paramount+, and Netflix are lower.
