A legacy of the past, YouTube is finally scrapping one of the most annoying things on its platform: the 30-second ad.
30 second pre-roll ads have been a staple of the video sharing platform for a while. They’re a legacy from television advertising, which is part of the problem. The length doesn’t really fit with YouTube, or the internet in general, and people have been waiting for Google to come up with a better answer.
As it turns out, that’s exactly what they’re doing. Confirmed to the BBC’s Newsround show, YouTube will scrap 30-second ads from 2018 onwards. “We’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” Google said in a statement.
Google didn’t specify what other alternatives it would develop, although highlighting more shorter, skippable ads seems a likely scenario. The 15 second ad, for instance, is a good fit for mobile games (with many developers offering rewards of in-game currency for sitting through the ad). But who knows? Maybe 5 second ads will become the new norm.
Comments
20 responses to “YouTube Will Scrap 30 Second Ads After 2017”
Excellent! They are the bane of my existence. First world problems blah blah
I went to YouTube Red a long time ago, haven’t looked back
Same. I forgot about ads on Youtube… its always strange to me now when the gf brings up her profile and we sit through an ad.
I forgot about ads on youtube because adblock seems to eat them all up >_>
Youtube is one of our 2 whitelisted domains. The amount we watch, it would be a prick move not to allow monetisation.
If you care about monetisation, YoutubeRed gives them a really good deal. Free ads, not so much.
Yeah I already am a youtube red member. Have been since it started.
Yeah I have been checking out Red Tube for ages too…
Totally with you on this, it’s bizarre to see an ad on someone’s Youtube now, and whenever someone else shows me something and we have to wait five secs to be able to skip the ad, I’m like “How do you live like this!!?!?!” 🙂
I also Red. It’s a little steep to my mind, especially given that it includes features that SHOULD be fucking standard (eg: continue playing audio when mobile device is locked) but I forget about it, so the resentment fades.
The value is pretty good if you make use of Google Play Music, it led me to cancel my Spotify account and even go so far as deleting Winamp after all these years.
Agree with @beatsbynelly, Google Play Music in the same subscription makes it excellent value. I already had a Music sub so Red was just a free addition for me but I’ve loved what it does.
I’d imagine the 30sec ad might have been a good driver for YouTube Red subscriptions… ?
*Scrap 30 second ads*
-World cheers-
*introduces 28 second ads*
Nah. 1 minute 30 second ads!
Now if only they’d do something about ads that are twice as loud as the content.
Hell, after running a few playlists of varying volumes, I’d prefer that they include normalization as a mandatory part of the upload process.
Normalization can make things a bit flat though, especially with music.
they’re scrapping them for 1 minute ads instead
This! I’d take a tonne if 39 second ads compared to the hideous one minute, two minute, TEN MINUTE commercials that pop up on the site from tine to time