You might often be annoyed with YouTube ads interrupting your streaming experience, especially for long-form content. Back in September, Google announced that it was exploring options to reduce this kind of interruptions by introducing fewer longer ad breaks to create a smoother viewing experience.
Now, after months of testing, the feature is rolling out across the globe. YouTube users on TV will be able to experience these improvements in certain long-form content.
In early testing of fewer, longer ad breaks on connected TVs, over half of YouTube CTV streamers experienced 29% longer viewing sessions before their next ad break, said the company.
Further, YouTube is bringing a new update in favor of viewers’ preference of wanting to know the total time remaining in the ad break over the number of ads being served. With this update that should roll out soon, viewers will also see the time left until the break ends, or they can skip to the content.
In addition to these ad updates, YouTube is also bringing ads to Shorts on TV, citing the whopping 100% viewership increase of Shorts on connected TVs until September 2023. Viewers can use their TV remote to click away from ads.
With these new updates, YouTube is streamlining the connected TV ad experience for viewers and advertisers.