Amazon today announced that it will include “limited advertisements” in movies and shows starting in early 2024 in the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada. Australia, France, Italy, Mexico, and Spain will follow later in the year.
If you don’t want to see that advertising, you’ll be able to get rid of it for an extra $3 a month, provided that you already are an Amazon Prime member. (Non-member pricing will be announced later, Amazon said.
The news comes just days after Amazon announced its latest Amazon Fire TV hardware at an event at HQ2 in Arlington, Va.
Amazon, in a post on its “About Amazon” press site, said that it aims “to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.” It did not, however, give any indication of how many ads (or their duration) you’d see per hour or half-hour, or how often they might appear in movies.
Advertising isn’t entirely new to Amazon Prime Video. You currently will see ads in its Thursday Night Football streams, just as you would in any other NFL game. And Amazon says you’ll continue to see ads in live events.
Amazon didn’t give a specific reason for adding advertising, but it did say that it’s being implemented “to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”
Amazon said it’ll email Prime members about the change before ads actually go live on the service.
