What Happened to Our Ad-Free TV?

2024-05-26 09:03:02.967000+00:00 - Scroll down for original article

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Not long ago, streaming TV came with a promise: Sign up, and commercials will be a thing of the past. Netflix rose to streaming dominance in part by luring customers to an ad-free experience. Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ and HBO Max followed that lead. Well, that did not last long. Ads are getting increasingly hard to avoid on streaming services. One by one, Netflix, Disney+, Peacock, Paramount+ and Max have added 30- and 60-second commercials in exchange for a slightly lower subscription price. Amazon has turned ads on by default. And the live sports on those services include built-in commercial breaks no matter what price you pay. The importance of advertising was driven home this month when Amazon and Netflix both staged their first in-person presentations during the so-called upfronts, a decades-old television event in New York where media companies try to woo advertisers.