By Mallory Mattingly
Feel like you’re sitting through more ads on Prime Video? Well, it’s not your imagination. The streamer has quietly doubled its ad content from three minutes per hour to six.
According to six different ad buyers and documents reviewed by Adweek, the current ad time on Prime Video ranges “from four to six minutes per hour.”
This is a far cry from Prime Video’s original promise to limit ads to “just two to three-and-a-half minutes per hour,” but an Amazon representative confirmed the increased ad load while communicating with an ad buyer.
“[Amazon] told us the ad load would be increasing. That’s been confirmed recently when we noticed more avails in the system,” said Kendra Tang, programmatic supervisor at Rain the Growth Agency.
Unsurprisingly, Amazon issued a statement defending its increase.
An Amazon Ads spokesperson said in the report. “While demand continues to grow, our commitment is to improving ad experiences rather than simply increasing the number of ads shown.”
According to TV Line, Prime Video first introduced ads in 2024, telling subscribers, “This change will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”
At the time the streamer promised “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,” and if consumers wanted to remain ad-free, they needed to pay an extra $2.99 per month.
“They had to make the ad load palatable,” Doug Paladino of PMG explained, per Adweek.
Related: How Prime Video Ads Will Impact Viewers
Paladino thinks that now, however, Prime Video is where it actually wants to be with the amount of ads run per hour.
“This is a lot of them coming back to equilibrium,” he said. “They have more subscribers than any other ad-supported streamer, but many weren’t watching enough for that to matter. More ad load helps bring that back into balance.”
Compared to other streamers, Prime Video lands in the middle; Netflix offers the “lightest ad experience, while services like Hulu, Tubi, and Paramount+ carry heavier loads,” Adweek said.
Amazon now has more ad inventory to sell, which could help it in the long run.
“That’s the upside here. A biddable environment, plus greater supply, should allow buyers to find impressions at more efficient rates. It’s a good thing if they can scale without degrading user experience,” said David Nyurenberg, senior vice president of digital at InterMedia Advertising.
While the increased ads are certainly frustrating, only time will tell how they impact Prime Video.
Read Next: Ads to Arrive on Prime Video This January
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