Major Streaming Service Adding Even More Commercials

Max subscribers will now have to sit through even more commercial breaks.

The Warner Bros. Discovery streaming service has increased ads-per-hour on its Basic with Ads tier, which costs $9.99 per month, to up to six minutes per hour while also introducing ad breaks in the middle of HBO content.

“If you subscribe to the Basic with Ads plan, ads will play before and during shows and movies (about 6 minutes of ads per hour). Ad breaks are marked on the progress bar when you pause playback,” Max’s help center now reads. According to PC World, as recently as February, the page stated that viewers could expect to see around four minutes of ads per hour of content.

The increase in ad times to six minutes marks a nearly 50% increase in commercials for Basic with Ads subscribers. When Max, set to rebrand as HBO Max this summer, launched the ad-supported tier in 2021, it promised no more than four minutes of ads per hour. The streamer also promised not to show ads during HBO programming, but has seemingly backtracked on both of those promises.

Warner Bros. Discovery hasn’t addressed the increased ad time, but it comes as more streaming services put an increased focus on commercial breaks during streaming content to increase revenue. Netflix, Hulu, and Disney+ also offer ad-supported tiers. Earlier this month, Amazon’s Prime Video, which only introduced ads last year, increased ads during viewing from two to three-and-a-half minutes per hour to four to six minutes per hour.

“Prime Video ad load has gradually increased to four to six minutes per hour,” an Amazon representative wrote to an ad buyer in an email obtained by ADWEEK.

The uptick in commercials, bringing streaming closer to cable TV, comes at a cost: more and more subscribers are airing their grievances, especially amid the continuously increasing costs of streaming. Following Max’s implementation of six minutes of ads, subscribers blasted Max’s ad-supported tier as “unwatchable,” as somebody else on Reddit said, “Cool, I’ll be watching 50% less Max programming.” Another person noted that “cut the cord has become everything we were running away from.”

Streamers wishing to avoid ads will have to resort to one of Max’s ad-free tiers – Standard at $16.99 per month or Premium at $20.99 per month.