A SMART TV brand looks set to infuriate viewers after it announced a change to its streaming boxes.
Roku confirmed it would be including more pesky ads on the home screens of its devices and TVs in the near future.
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The company’s VP of global ad sales and partnerships, Kristian Shepard added that the move will “immerse advertisers in more parts of the screen and home” via interactive and ‘shoppable’ ad formats, Adexchanger reported.
Last year, the media player introduced interactive ads in June 2023 that acted as ‘virtual showrooms’ and allowed users to click around a ‘virtual catalog’.
As of the third quarter of 2023, Roku reported a total of around 75.8 million active accounts worldwide.
The popular service enables viewers to access some of the biggest internet streaming giants such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, Spotify and Hulu.
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Roku will follow in the footsteps of Amazon Prime, who announced that users would have to pay more to avoid ads on their platform.
The huge change is coming to audiences in the UK and US this year.
Viewers stateside will now have to pay an extra $2.99 (£2.35) per month for the privilege of watching movies and shows without adverts.
The exact price for UK subscribers is yet to be announced.
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Amazon said it needs to introduce “limited advertisements” to increase investment in original content.
“We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers,” the firm explained.
“We will email Prime members several weeks before ads are introduced into Prime Video with information on how to sign up for the ad-free option if they would like.”
According to the insider newsletter Lowpass, Amazon’s profits on ads revenues and advertising services surpass those of subscription fees.
For this, the giant marketplace is now planning to turn its TV and video service into another money-maker.
However, Amazon bosses admitted the move may hit users- but they are monitoring the new feature to avoid a loss of subscribers.
