Summary
- Roku plans to boost ad revenue by placing video ads on its home screen, possibly expanding to other channels and devices in the future.
- Content online now heavily relies on ad revenue, with most streaming services implementing video ads for greater profits.
- While ads finance content online, the trend of placing ads solely to maximize profit may diminish the internet experience for everyone.
Long gone are the heady days of the early internet when monetization and ad revenue had yet to sully the pure waters of the web. Content on today’s internet is funded almost exclusively by advertising dollars, and streaming media services are not exempt from their taint. YouTube, one of the first video providers to run ads, started showing them in its videos back in 2007. Just last winter, we learned that Amazon would be running in-video ads on its Prime Video service. And now, Roku is adding video ads to its platform as well.
How intrusive will it be
The news comes from Roku’s April 25 Q1 earnings call where Roku CEO Anthony Wood outlined how he plans to boost ad revenue by placing video ads on Roku’s home screen (via 9to5Google). Wood did not mention plans to place ads in the content of other channels users may have installed, but he did say “We’re also testing other types of video ad units, looking at other experiences we can add to the home screen.”
The push to monetize the home screen comes in the face of continuing financial losses for Roku, and an advertising market just starting to rebound from a two-year slump. And, this isn’t the first time we’ve heard of video ads on Roku. Earlier this month, reporting emerged on a patent application filed by Roku that would inject ads into any device connected to one of its TVs, and in October, news broke of plans for Roku and Spotify to collaborate on placing video ads on Spotify’s Roku app.
Sign of the times
Sadly, it seems like ads are the inescapable future of the internet. Although it’s easy to recognize that advertising money finances much of the amazing content you can find online, the addition of ads just for the sake of maximizing profit margins is making the internet a worse place. Some services, like Netflix, mitigate the pain of placing ads in their content by placing ad-supported plans at a lower price than what current subscribers are paying. Other services, like Prime Video, are less generous with their subscribers and create a new, more expensive subscription tier for users that don’t want to see ads. Of course, if you’re sick of the lot of them, we can help you cancel Amazon Prime, Netflix, and Roku.
