YouTube will start showing fewer, but longer ads on TVs

Ben Schoon | Dec 14 2023 - 8:38 am PT

Amid its ongoing efforts to crack down on ad blockers on the web, YouTube has now announced that, for the sake of a “better streaming experience,” it will lessen how many ads you see on TV, but they’ll be getting longer.

In a brief announcement, Google explains how it is building “a better streaming experience” by putting fewer ad breaks in videos when viewers are streaming YouTube from a TV app, whether that be something like a Google TV, a Roku streaming device, or a smart TV.

The trade-off, though, is that ad breaks will be much longer.

The option to skip, which currently comes up after 5-10 seconds, could now take up to a minute to be able to skip based on Google’s demo. But, after that longer ad is viewed, fewer ad breaks will be seen throughout the entire video. The YouTube app will even directly tell users that fewer ad breaks will be shown for the remainder of the video.

YouTube says that this is based on a survey of viewers who said that they would prefer if ads were grouped together instead of split throughout the video. The platform started testing this in September.

Based on this preference, we evaluated fewer, longer ad breaks, to create a more seamless viewing experience on the big screen. In early testing of fewer, longer ad breaks on connected TVs, over half of YouTube CTV streamers experienced 29% longer viewing sessions before their next ad break.

But, alongside that, YouTube Shorts on TVs will also start to show ads. While Shorts have been on the big screen for around a year now, they’ve only shown ads on mobile devices and the web. Like on other platforms, ads will show in between Shorts and can be scrolled past using the remote.