Ads on YouTube are about to get more intrusive. The company has announced that it will be implementing unskippable 30-second ads if you use the video streaming site on your TV. That’s right, if two 10-second ads, the second of which could be skipped is too much, it’s about to get worse. And this doesn’t include the mid-roll and final ads in the end. Imagine sitting through half a minute of ads when using YouTube on TV.
The announcement was made during its second annual Brandcast event (via Deadline) which was received by a round of applause from the audience. Google’s President of Sales, Sean Downey said that the feature will be available via YouTube Select and will affect around 70 percent of impressions. Adweek reported that Downey claimed at the event, that this new feature “would allow for richer storytelling in our most-viewed content,” making it easier for advertisers who are used to televised advertising to place ads onto the platform.
YouTube Select is one of YouTube’s advertising programs, where advertisers can control to whom, and where their ads get played. The program was introduced back in June 2020 and was described as a rebrand of the Google Preferred program, a system where advertisers could place their ads on high-performing videos. Google hopes that this new initiative will attract more advertisers to the platform due to brands withdrawing in previous years.
According to Variety, YouTube’s CEO, Neal Mohan commented on this change, claiming that more people are watching YouTube via their TVs, especially a younger audience.
“More and more, viewers are tuning into YouTube on the biggest screen in their home. Viewers — especially younger viewers — no longer make a distinction between the kind of content they’re watching. When they turn on the TV, they want everything they love in one place — from their favorite creators, to blockbuster movies, to football. And they can find it all on YouTube.”
Aside from unskippable 30-second ads, YouTube has been recently experimenting with banning ad blockers on its site. People have reported seeing pop-ups that prompted users to either turn the plug-in off or consider getting YouTube Premium. As of writing, it’s currently not been rolled out widely.
YouTube has been finding more ways to make the platform profitable, and seems to be constantly increasing the number of ads that get viewed. Now, these 30-second unskippable ads are just part of the company’s next step to increase the site’s revenue and incentives advertisers to come back to the platform. And since Adblock isn’t a thing on Smart TVs, most users will simply have to endure.
For the time being, Google hasn’t revealed any plans to roll out this unblockable 30-second ad initiative for web and mobile users.
Published: May 18, 2023 01:58 am