As many of the best streaming services become more expensive, a lot of subscribers have opted to save cash by signing up to their cheaper ad tiers – but the ad experiences of different services vary in terms of their intrusiveness and depending on where you live.
According to analysis undertaken by BB Media and shared with TechRadar, the majority of globally available streamers have increased the number of ads being shown on their services as they look for ways to generate more revenue, with only two scaling them back.
That’s based on global data from 2024, which shows that both Discovery+ and Paramount+ were the only outliers of this trend, with each reducing the number of ads interrupting content, including – in the latter’s case – the best Paramount+ shows, throughout the year.
While exact figures for the ad times on Discovery+ weren’t disclosed, according to the analysis, Paramount+ dropped the length of time ads were being shown by four minutes per hour last year, marking the biggest reduction out of all the streamers.
Netflix, on the other hand, maintained its ad runtime of 45 to 60 seconds per hour but is projected to grow from 60 to 120 seconds per hour in 2025. And while no data was supplied for Prime Video, Freevee did see an uptick by 1 minute and 20 seconds.
It was a similar story in the US, with Discovery+ and Paramount+ also reducing the duration of commercials to average 6.52 minutes and 2.08 minutes, respectively, per hour. However, Netflix significantly pulled back ads in the US after peaking at 3.72 minutes in 2023 to just 0.6 minutes per hour.
Compared to ads on services like YouTube and some of the best free streaming services like Freevee or Pluto TV, the major paid-for streaming services have much smaller ad runtimes, but these are creeping up.
YouTube is the worst for ads, which many could have probably guessed but what’s most frustrating about that it was also the first streaming service to have a price hike come into effect in 2025. BB Media’s analysis shows Amazon‘s free ad-supported service is next (see graphic above) but since Freevee closed down, its content has been moved into the Prime Video app.
Of course, with ads being such a great source of extra revenue for streaming services, many have increased the amount shown as more advertising partnerships are made. By far the biggest jump was from Disney+, which almost doubled the ad time from 1.64 minutes in 2023 to 3.7 minutes in 2024.
That puts the House of Mouse’s streaming service inline with Hulu, making the pair the two biggest platforms with longest number of ads in the US. Peacock follows close behind at 3.19 minutes per hour and most likely Max based on the increase it made to 3 minutes per hour for global subscribers, although no data was shared for 2024.
To see the full list of how each service has increased and decreased the amount of ads shown over the past three years, see below.
|
Streaming service |
2022 |
2023 |
2024 |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Discovery+ |
6.75 |
6.52 |
N/A |
|
Disney+ |
N/A |
1.64 |
3.7 |
|
Max |
2.69 |
2.94 |
N/A |
|
Hulu |
2.35 |
3.17 |
3.7 |
|
Netflix |
0.79 |
3.72 |
0.6 |
|
Paramount+ |
6.12 |
2.08 |
N/A |
|
Peacock |
3.4 |
2.46 |
3.19 |
With many streaming services rolling out ad-supported tiers, I expect more and more budget savvy subscribers will be looking at factors outside the reduced price to see if these cheaper tiers are worth signing up to.
Indeed, BB data shows that Netflix and Prime Video have expanded the number of ad-supported subscribers on each platform, followed closely behind by Hulu, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+ and Max.
It seems, then, that there’s a growing tolerance for ads – well, at least from the streaming services’ perspectives. This is most likely down to tightening budget strings, but it could mean that we see more ads introduced as a result.
Last year, Prime Video announced plans to introduce even more ads because people didn’t complain enough about the last, and at the start of 2025 it began to rollout three new types of adverts, including carousel ads, pause ads and trivia ads.
Since then, Max has also been experimenting with different ad formats, including showing QR codes to shop for products related to the content you’re watching, sponsored content recommendations and commercials that target ‘moments’ in a movie or show related to a theme like cooking, real estate or gaming.
I don’t doubt that more platforms will jump on the ads onslaught even more, making the need for data that compares how long and frequent these commercials are on each streaming service even more crucial.
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amelia.schwanke@futurenet.com (Amelia Schwanke)
