Why Amazon Prime video suddenly has a different look
CNN
Amazon Prime members today may notice something looks a little different when they watch Prime Video: They’ll have to watch ads, unless they want to pay a little extra.
Amazon Prime members today may notice something looks a little different when they watch Prime Video: They’ll have to watch ads, unless they want to pay a little extra. Starting Monday, Prime Video will feature “limited” advertisements in its shows and movies. To avoid ads, customers will have to pay $2.99 a month more. Amazon first announced the change in September. “This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time,” Amazon said in an email to Prime members in December. “We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.” Amazon is hardly alone in making the change. Prime Video is joining most other streaming services by inserting ads into its programming and raising prices on ad-free tiers. That’s because streaming services are no long chasing subscribers, but rather investors are pressuring them to make money off the services, even if it comes at the expense of losing subscriptions. As a result, they are selling ads or hiking monthly prices. Netflix in October said its premium ad-free plan in the United States will increase by $3 per month, to $22.99. Its one-stream basic plan rose to $11.99 in the United States; that plan is grandfathered in and is no longer available for new or rejoining members. All other plans, including its entry-level, $6.99-a-month ad-supported tier, remained at the same monthly cost.
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