Today Hulu announced that they are cutting the number of ads you will see in half. Recently the average Hulu ad break went up to 180 seconds. Now Hulu will be capping ads to 90-second breaks during shows according to AdAge. This change will affect Hulu subscribers on the limited commercial on-demand plan. Customers with Hulu’s live TV services will still see the same amount of ads when watching a live feed of ABC for example.
This comes a few months after Hulu started to test ads when you pause your video. Now when you pause your video a still ad appears, that takes up a little less than 1/4 of your screen. For now, only ads for Coke are showing but it is very likely that will change int he weeks and months to come as more partners buy up this new ad space. It is very possible that these pause screen ads may be bringing in more revenue than traditional ad break ads.
Originally it was reported that Hulu was testing full video ads when you paused your video. These ads rolling out today are only still screen images that promote Coke. Ads like these are not new TiVo, and ReplayTV introduced ads like this in early versions of the DVR. The question is now how will customers respond to new ads like this.
What do you think of this plan? Would fewer ads change your viewing habits on Hulu? Leave us a comment and let us know what you think.
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