As Amazon warned subscribers, February 5th marks the day that ad breaks would begin appearing on Prime Video in Canada unless they are willing to pay an additional $2.99/month.
Last month, Amazon began notifying subscribers that its Prime Video subscription service would follow in the footsteps of Netflix and Disney+ in introducing advertisements. As indicated by Amazon, Canadian subscribers can expect to see “limited advertisements” during movies and TV shows.
Upon its announcement, Amazon claimed its decision to introduce ads allowed the company to “continue investing in compelling content.” The company also assured subscribers that the number of ads seen would be “meaningfully fewer” than cable or other streaming services.
Unlike Netflix and Disney+, Amazon incorporated its ads into an existing tier. Netflix and Disney+, on the other hand, decided to take a different approach. Rather than bake ads into pre-established subscriptions, the two streaming services offer a cheaper, low-cost option. Amazon’s approach means that Canadian subscribers must purchase a $2.99/month add-on on top of their existing Prime subscription.
As far as how many ads subscribers can expect on Prime Video, there appears to be upwards of three-and-a-half minutes worth of ads per hour. In comparison, Netflix has around 5 minutes of ads each hour. Disney+ includes around four minutes of ads on an hourly basis.
Canada isn’t the only market Amazon is introducing ads in for Prime Video. The U.S. got hit with ads as well on January 29th.
