Youtube tests up to ten unskippable clips per video

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How much advertising can users endure? Youtube tests up to ten unskippable clips per video

Advertising is the most important source of income for Google’s parent company Alphabet. With its YouTube streaming platform, the group now seems to be testing the limits of resilience.

If you look at the still growing streaming market, Youtube is still the exception. Although there, too, longer video formats have long since increased from the initially short clips, the platform, unlike Netflix, Amazon and Co., still relies on advertising as a central source of income. But even die-hard fans seem to be pushed to their limits by the Google sister company’s latest test runs.

In numerous social networks, YouTube users report that they are no longer presented with just one or two advertising clips, as was previously the case, but significantly more. Twitter user “Sondesix” documents examples in a tweet that show five, seven, eight and even ten posts before a video. And: These are advertising clips that cannot be canceled by the user after a short time.

Up to one minute of advertising per clip

There has not yet been an official announcement by YouTube about the test run. Apparently, the larger advertising blocks are currently only played out to individual users and not to every video. In a tweet, the company’s support account called “TeamYouTube” confirmed that the advertising accumulations were just so-called “bumper ads”. This is what YouTube calls very short clips with a running time of less than six seconds. In the end, the ten advertising videos would only have a maximum running time of less than a minute.

For the user, however, it still represents a clear deterioration. Because: Unlike with a single, long clip, you cannot click Cancel after a few seconds. Instead, the commercial break must be allowed to run through completely.

heavy market

The trend towards more advertising on YouTube is not new in itself. While numerous clips on the platform used to be able to do without advertising, the majority now have an advertising display at least before the video is played. If the uploader allows it, YouTube will also show further commercial breaks during and after the main video. Observers also notice that the number of non-cancellable ad placements has increased, so users de facto have to see more ads.

With the increase in advertising shown, YouTube could react to the significantly lower growth. While the parent company Alphabet was able to report record growth of a whopping 84 percent in YouTube advertising revenue last year, they have fallen sharply this year. In the second quarter, revenue had increased by only 4.8 percent. And were below expectations. With an increasing number of non-skippable ads, one might want to recoup that revenue.

The alternative does not seem to be accepted very well by users. With Youtube Premium, Google also offers an ad-free version of the service, which, like Netflix and Co., relies on a subscription model. However, it is by no means as successful as the competition. Netflix also has over 200 million active subscriptions, Disney+ has already cracked 150 million after three years. And even Apple TV+, previously considered a marginal phenomenon, is estimated to have 40 million subscriptions. On YouTube, only an estimated 20 million viewers are willing to pay to have ads turned off. How this number develops with the additional advertising should be exciting.

Sources:Twitter 1, twitter 2, 9to5google