No one likes watching ads when streaming content, but the ad experience becomes even worse when ad breaks are repeated after rewinding. Even though signing up to an ad-supported tier helps to lower the cost, there’s no reason why subscribers should have to sit through the same ad break twice.
While not every streaming service does this, it does seem as though ad break repetition is becoming more common. In general, we have noticed an increase in the issue over the past year, and when using many popular streaming services, including Hulu, Prime Video, and Max.
The problem is amplified when a subscriber has just sat through an ad break and then rewinds briefly to catch up on what happened just before the break. In these instances, subscribers often end up sitting through two back-to-back ad breaks.
This is not a criticism of the general use of ads. After all, consumers do typically have the choice to pay more for an ad-free experience. Not to mention, there are worse ad-related issues, including individual repetitive ads, which affect a much greater number of users.
Likewise, as many streaming services don’t consider previews to be ads, these previews often result in longer ad breaks, and are equivalent to ads for ad-free subscribers. So, yes, there are worse ad-related issues.
That said, sitting through ads and previews is completely different to sitting through an ad break you’ve already sat through. If rewinding back to near the start of a video, subscribers of some streaming services are likely to encounter all of the same ad breaks again.
Regardless of how frequent the issue is, the use of repeated ad breaks feels like an additional punishment for rewinding content. This not only devalues the user experience, but also discourages subscribers from rewinding to begin with.
Unfortunately, and as the case with other ad issues, repeating ad breaks are unlikely to be something that becomes less frequent in the future. Even though streaming services are continually investing in the ad experience, these investments are more typically in terms of variety and type, and not on actually improving elements like the reduction of repeated ad breaks.
What worries us even more is the increase in use of engagement and interaction-based ads. If the time comes when viewers are actually required to interact with an ad, then the use of repeated ad breaks is likely to become even worse than it is today.
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