YouTube Will Scrap 30 Second Ads After 2017

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.


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