I was just lining up Cliffhanger – the 1993 classic movie, starring Sylvester Stallone – on Amazon Prime Video, as I'd noticed it was only available on the streamer until the end of yesterday. Must have something to do with Studio Canal+ now hosting the movie instead.
I didn't get too far, however, as the once best streaming service has gone all-out with its serving of advertisements – and I'm not at all happy about it, considering Prime already costs me £95 per year. I know I could go ad-free, but that'd cost even more (an extra £2.99 per month, so almost £36 extra per year).
Amazon clearly wants that additional revenue for profit margins, though, as I was served no fewer than six pre-roll adverts, the total runtime of which was around the four-and-a-half minutes mark. That's not all, though: a clear mark on the movie's timeline showed a second set of ads would also be served just shy of an hour into playback.
That ups the ad count per hour to around or over six minutes in total. Which, I think, is excessive. It's a huge increase overall – double, actually, as reported by Adweek earlier this year – since ads were introduced to the service. I hadn't seen that article until I began researching why Amazon has seen fit to increase the ad count so significantly.
Some viewers are struggling with a more US-style series of breaks, however, with up to six individual ads served per hour – as reported in The Express – interrupting viewing more frequently than ever before. I'd not been experiencing this style of ad onslaught until very recently – suggesting a conscious change at Amazon.
That's frustrating, especially as Amazon Prime Video lost other perks when its ad tier was introduced. Those wanting Dolby Vision or Dolby Atmos content may have noted last year that this had been removed. Again, to the detriment of user experience.
I love some of what Amazon Prime Video has to offer, but think some shows need to flow uninterrupted to be enjoyed as they truly should be. From the excellent Fallout adaptation, to the brilliant The Boys and its Gen V spin-off (which I was late to watch, but can't wait to see return).
Cliffhanger, meanwhile, I couldn't hang on to watch for any longer. After sitting through the four-or-so minutes of ads, just to ensure they weren't skippable (they weren't), I decided exiting it and skipping the mid-movie ads was the way to go. That's the risk Amazon is playing with: users switching off entirely or going elsewhere.
And elsewhere is where I'm remaining at the moment. After doing the unthinkable and subscribing to Paramount+, I'm now hooked on the latest Dexter season, nice and free of any ads. Apple TV+, on the other hand, is easily my favourite streamer of the year, with a cost effective solution and tonnes of great sci-fi series to tuck into.
I understand there are rising costs and pressures, but this ad-laden route just undermines consumer confidence in my view. Netflix costs far more than Amazon, granted, but with the likes of Apple TV+ and Disney+ offering ad-free for Amazon Prime's equivalent monthly rate, I'm not happy about its ad increase at all.
