Amazon's Prime Video Will Start Showing Subscribers Ads
Viewers who want an ad-free experience will have to pay an additional $3.
Amazon has found a new way to monetize video streaming. After first announcing the plan in September, the company will be rolling out ads to their Prime Video platform starting late next month.
Subscribers already pay $15 USD per month for the full-on Amazon Prime membership or $9 USD for access to solely Prime Video. With its new scheme, Amazon will show ads to users enrolled in both of those subscriptions, unless they shell out $3 USD monthly for the ad-free version.
Users located in the US will begin “limited advertisements” while watching content on January 29. Ads will come to the UK and Germany just slightly later on February 5.
Some streamers, such as Netflix, have rolled out ad-supported subscription tiers for a cheaper price. The difference with Amazon’s move, however, is that the price of Prime Video will remain the same.
In an email to Prime Video members, Amazon said that showing ads will allow it to “continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing investment over a long period of time.”
The company maintained that it wouldn’t inundate viewers with ads and would show “meaningfully fewer ads than ad-supported TV channels” and other providers.
