While sitting through ads during your favorite show might be a little annoying, a new survey shows that viewers don’t mind watching ads so much as long as they’re relevant. Hub recently released part II of its “TV Advertising: Fact vs. Fiction” study, and the findings show that although the ad-supported tier of Discovery+ was deemed to have significantly more ads than other services, viewers still enjoyed their viewing experience.
According to the survey, 50% of viewers say they see more ads on Discovery+ than any other services, including HBO Max and Peacock. Hulu and Paramount+ were down at the bottom of the ads-to-content ratio list.
However, although Discovery+ seems to have a high amount of ad interruptions accompanying its content, a surprising 60% of viewers say the number of ads on the platform is reasonable, the highest satisfaction rating of all services listed. This time, Peacock ranked last in the perceived acceptable number of ads.
Looking a bit further into the findings, we see that viewers seem to be unbothered by ads that follow some important criteria: informative, consistent with the type of show they’re watching, and relevant to the viewer.
Survey respondents rated Discovery+ highest overall in the first two categories (24% informative, 22% consistent), and tied with Hulu at 17% who agree the ads are relevant.
“Ad-supported TV providers have been focused on finding ways to balance the needs of their two main constituents: advertisers (ensuring strong reach and frequency) and viewers (not bombarding them with insufferable ad loads),” said Peter Fondulas, Hub principal and co-author of the study. “So far, the primary focus has been on finding the ad load sweet spot that both groups find reasonable. But this research—in particular, the findings for Discovery+ — suggests that the key to overcoming ad load concerns is delivering spots that viewers clearly recognize as in line with their interests. And the vast majority of viewers are not opposed to sharing the kind of data that will allow that to happen.”
The data cited here come from the second wave of Hub’s “TV Advertising: Fact Vs. Fiction” study, conducted among 3,038 US consumers age 14-74, who watch at least 1 hour of TV per week. The data were collected in December 2021