We knew it was coming, but Amazon has now confirmed to Prime Video UK subscribers that they will start seeing adverts on 5th February.
In an email sent to UK subscribers (see below), Amazon states: "Starting February 5, Prime Video movies and TV shows will include limited advertisements. This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time. We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than ad-supported TV channels and other streaming TV providers."
This ad-supported model follows other streaming services such as Netflix and Disney Plus that have started to offer streaming plans that include ads since last year.
What sets Prime Video apart from the others, however, is that its full library is available in 4K quality even at the standard £5.99 per month tier, making it the most affordable way to stream films and TV shows in Ultra HD quality. You have to pay £17.99 monthly for Netflix's premium tier offering 4K quality content; the equivalent is £10.99 for Disney Plus, while its ad-free Full HD tier is £7.99. Both Netflix and Disney Plus's basic ad-supported tier costs £4.99 with Full HD content only.
You can also get access to Prime Video as part of your subscription if you're an Amazon Prime customer, but you can sign up for Prime Video on its own for £5.99 a month.
If you don't want ads interrupting your Prime Video shows, you'll have to cough up an additional £2.99 to remove them by signing up for the new ad-free plan for £8.98 per month separately. In the US, you're looking at an extra $2.99 on top of the basic $9 Prime Video monthly subscription for an ad-free experience.
As we reported in September, the US, UK, Germany and Canada will be the first countries to see ads introduced at the start of 2024, which will then expand to France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later this year.
Interestingly, Amazon has promised to show fewer ads than its rivals, and we hope that's the case once the new plan comes into place. It will also be interesting to see how many existing subscribers will carry on with the current plan or pay the extra fee for no ads...
There's still time to make a decision, but if you're not keen on seeing ads at all and don't want to pay extra, well, you have less than a month to binge-watch the second season of Reacher, Saltburn and Everything Everywhere All It Once...
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