AUGUSTA, Ga. (WRDW/WAGT) – If you’ve sat down to watch a movie or series on Amazon Prime Video lately, you’ve probably noticed a commercial.
Late last year, the company sent an email to Prime members informing them that starting in 2024, a limited number of commercial breaks would be added before and after shows and movies.
This is not good for long-time Amazon Prime members. One of the biggest benefits of an Amazon Prime subscription was the ability to watch movies and TV shows without commercials, similar to Netflix.
From now on, Amazon customers will have to watch ads before and during shows, or pay an additional $3 a month for uninterrupted viewing.
Amazon said the additional fees will allow the company to develop and produce higher quality content for its platform.
Last year, Amazon received 68 Emmy nominations for its work. How annoying are ads?
Amazon said it will have fewer commercials than ad-supported streaming services such as Pluto, Tubi and Amazon-owned FreeVee. If I selected the Amazon Prime series “Reacher,” a 30-second ad played before the show started, but there were no other ads during the hour-long show.
The Amazon Original movie “Shotgun Wedding” opened with a 15-second ad, but there were no other commercials for the rest of the movie.
I found that non-Amazon original movies had commercials inserted about every 30 minutes. Not ideal, but not too bad either.
However, German website 4kfilm has discovered that Amazon has also removed Dolby Atmos and Dolby Vision from its free tier.
This means that the highest quality images and sounds are only available if you pay an additional $3 per month.
While most people may not notice a difference, some do, especially viewers who have purchased a top-of-the-line TV for the movie theater experience.
Amazon Prime customers filed a class action lawsuit over the change, alleging that Amazon deceived customers by promoting commercial-free content, breached its contract with Prime members and violated consumer protection laws.
Prime Video’s commercial breaks are short, but I found them to interrupt the flow of the content I was watching.
As we sat and watched the classic romantic comedy “Some Kind of Wonderful,” a 15- to 30-second ad played every 40 minutes.
Advertisements would pop up without warning, often in the middle of scenes where actors were saying their lines.
However, overall, commercial breaks aren’t necessarily annoying. But those looking for the highest quality picture and sound will have to pay $36 a year on top of the $140 annual Prime membership fee.
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