Amazon will offer a new ad-free option on Prime Video for an additional cost of $2.99 per month in the U.S.
American tech giant Amazon has announced the introduction of “limited advertisements on its streaming platform Prime Video from early 2024. Ads on Amazon Prime Video will be fewer than those on linear television and other streaming TV providers.
“To continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time, starting in early 2024, Prime Video shows and movies will include limited advertisements,” the company said in a blog on Friday; adding that ads in movies, shows and other content in Prime Video will be introduced in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in the year.
For those who wish to have an ad-free experience, Amazon will offer a new ad-free option for an additional cost of $2.99 per month for Prime members in the U.S. Pricing for the ad-free experience on Prime Video for other countries will be shared later. Currently, Amazon Prime membership in the U.S. is priced at $14.99 for one month and $139 for a year. Prime Video membership is separately priced at $8.99 per month. Meanwhile, Amazon said to inform the members several weeks before ads are introduced into its streaming platform and will also provide information on how to sign up for the ad-free option.
It is noteworthy that Amazon already has a cheaper, ad-supported membership plan called Amazon Prime Lite in India. The company began testing Prime Lite membership in the country in January and the service is now available pan India for an annual subscription of Rs 999.
Last year, another OTT giant Netflix, in hopes of seeing a jump in ad revenue, also introduced its ad-supported subscription plan for Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States. The cheaper Netflix subscription plan, which is priced at $6.99 a month in the U.S., displays an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour. Disney also has similar ad-supported services for its streaming platform. In an earnings call in August, the company introduced new pricing tiers and said to offer an ad-free bundle of Disney+ and Hulu for $19.99 per month, while ad-supported versions of both services will remain at $7.99 per month. The change in pricing was made to counter its declining subscriber base.
