Hyderabad:The American multinational technology company, Amazon has announced its plan to insert ads into movies and TV shows streamed from its Prime Video service, from January 29 onwards in the upcoming year 2024.
The company has sent an official mail to its customers where it has given details of the transition date for commencing the ads. Prime Video customers have been provided the option of paying an additional $2.99 per month to avoid 'limited' ads. The company said that this move will allow it “to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”
In the email sent to the users, Amazon said the company aims to have “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers”. “No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership,” the company wrote in the email.
“We will also offer a new ad-free option for an additional $2.99 per month. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers. No action is required from you, and there is no change to the current price of your Prime membership," the company said.
Amazon Prime currently costs $14.99 each month or $139 annually whereas Prime Video can be subscribed to individually for $8.99 per month. Notably, Amazon also operates Freevee, a free, ad-sponsored streaming service. "Live event content such as sports, and content offered through Amazon Freevee will continue to include advertising", the company wrote.
The move comes as rival streaming services continue to raise subscription rates and push ads. Disney Plus, Hulu, Max, Netflix, and Paramount Plus all include ads on their most affordable tiers.
This step, termed as investment in compelling content by Amazon Prime, is met with brickbats from its users. Several users took to the micro-blogging platform, X(formerly Twitter) to express their thoughts on the new advertising scheme.