YouTube has announced that it is planning on introducing two back-to-back skippable ads which it is calling “Ad-pods.” This will let you watch a longer video without interruptions. Currently, YouTube shows an ad at the start and while you’re in the middle of watching a video.
Instead of two separate ads, YouTube will show two back-to-back ads before the video starts, to provide a distraction-free video watching experience. YouTube’s paid ad-free service, YouTube Premium, is only available in select countries. YouTube says that in its recent experience research in addition to factors such as the length of ads, viewers are quite sensitive to the frequency of ad breaks, especially during longer viewing sessions.
To respond to this, the company will soon begin testing ad pods–two ads stacked back to back, where viewers have the option to skip directly to the content if it’s not the right ad for them. This new experience will launch on the desktop this year and will be followed by mobile and TV screens.