• YouTube says that it is experimenting with new ways to deliver ads to viewers on smart TVs.
• Ad breaks are set to become longer, but with fewer ads over all.
• The way YouTube informs users on the length and number of ads is also set to get a facelift on the TV app.

Streaming giant YouTube says that its viewers, who number in the billions every month, prefer fewer interruptions when it comes to adverts playing while they watch their favourite content.

In an official blog post, the Google-owned video-watching platform says it is looking at changing the way it delivers ads to users to reflect this. It is experimenting with a host of updates that will initially be brought to YouTube apps on smart TVs.

Last year it introduced 30-second non-skippable ads to the app, and shoppable ads to TVs. Most recently it says it brought “feed ads” to its smart TV experience. These ads are sponsored videos or clips that appear almost naturally between others, and have become a go-to for platforms like TikTok.

“Based on this preference, we are evaluating new options that minimize average interruptions for viewers, such as fewer, longer ad breaks, to create a more seamless viewing experience on the big screen,” it says.

YouTube says it is also working on a way to bring more information to the user about how long an ad break will be. Instead of the current system that tells you the number of ads and the length of each, YouTube will instead just serve a timer with the remaining seconds until the ad break ends.

“Built from real-time feedback from thousands of viewers in dozens of markets, these experiments mark another chapter in the streaming revolution. As with all product efforts, we continue to validate user engagement and iterate,” the blog post reads.

Another experiment the company is running around its ads is the blocking of adblockers on the platform. Some users reported in June that having an adblocker on while trying to watch YouTube videos found them locked out of YouTube itself.

One screenshot shared shows a menu where YouTube tells the user that they will only be able to watch three videos before the video player is blocked. Seeing as all of YouTube is a “video player” this means that the app is effectively, unusable.

While this has yet to roll out generally to all users, there is a possibility that it may happen sooner rather than later. Especially if it drives users towards YouTube Premium subscriptions, which are ad-free.

[Image – Photo by Christian Wiediger on Unsplash]