EPT
All of the changes are here on twitch.tv.
TL;DR - Changes coming to our video advertising policy in the coming weeks mean you will get to your content sooner, the ads you do see will fit more naturally into the broadcast flow, and the browsing experience will be a lot smoother. We’re limiting pre-rolls on live content so you will only see one every few minutes instead of every time you load a stream, refresh, change resolutions, etc. We’re also giving all partners the ability to run commercial breaks for up to three minutes at a time in 30-second intervals and limiting the frequency of all commercial breaks to once every eight minutes. Read on for more.
As our Turbo feedback showed, many of our users think critically about revenue for streamers and it’s clear that we should be providing more context to avoid confusion. To that end, we’d like to notify everyone that we’re changing our commercial policy on pre-rolls and mid-rolls in the coming weeks, leading to a better experience for both viewers and broadcasters. For clarity, pre-rolls are video ads that run automatically when you join a live stream, whereas mid-rolls are ads triggered by the broadcaster, usually between games or when there is an extended break in content. This policy change affects both.
Currently, we attempt to show you a pre-roll whenever you join a live stream (you may not see one every time due to geography and/or seasonality). This also occurs when you refresh the stream, change the resolution, pop out the stream, or accidentally navigate away. Even though these actions don’t really occur that often in aggregate, sitting through another ad is a pretty annoying experience, so we’re changing it so you can’t see a pre-roll more than once every few minutes.
Note: The pre-roll must run completely before triggering this exemption. Also, if you are disabling flash cookies, this implementation cannot tell when you have last seen a pre-roll, so they must be enabled to take advantage of this change.
It’s our hope that this change also makes it easier to browse different streams until you find the one you want to watch (take advantage of this and try out the “Random” filter on our new directory page to discover new streams!). We’ve been experimenting with different pre-roll frequencies and we’re still looking for the length that offers an excellent viewer experience while still enabling partners to passively accumulate pre-roll ad revenue from new viewers joining their stream (most users stay and watch the first stream they land on), so please note that the minimum period may change. We expect this to roll out in the coming weeks.
As our Turbo feedback showed, many of our users think critically about revenue for streamers and it’s clear that we should be providing more context to avoid confusion. To that end, we’d like to notify everyone that we’re changing our commercial policy on pre-rolls and mid-rolls in the coming weeks, leading to a better experience for both viewers and broadcasters. For clarity, pre-rolls are video ads that run automatically when you join a live stream, whereas mid-rolls are ads triggered by the broadcaster, usually between games or when there is an extended break in content. This policy change affects both.
Currently, we attempt to show you a pre-roll whenever you join a live stream (you may not see one every time due to geography and/or seasonality). This also occurs when you refresh the stream, change the resolution, pop out the stream, or accidentally navigate away. Even though these actions don’t really occur that often in aggregate, sitting through another ad is a pretty annoying experience, so we’re changing it so you can’t see a pre-roll more than once every few minutes.
Note: The pre-roll must run completely before triggering this exemption. Also, if you are disabling flash cookies, this implementation cannot tell when you have last seen a pre-roll, so they must be enabled to take advantage of this change.
It’s our hope that this change also makes it easier to browse different streams until you find the one you want to watch (take advantage of this and try out the “Random” filter on our new directory page to discover new streams!). We’ve been experimenting with different pre-roll frequencies and we’re still looking for the length that offers an excellent viewer experience while still enabling partners to passively accumulate pre-roll ad revenue from new viewers joining their stream (most users stay and watch the first stream they land on), so please note that the minimum period may change. We expect this to roll out in the coming weeks.
The entire writeup can be found here at twitch.tv
