ROKU has announced that it will adopt new features from its competitors. This is probably the most hated feature added to TV screens in recent times.
The company, which competes with Fire TV and Google TV, has announced that it will start displaying video ads and more on the home screen.
Amazon’s Fire TV introduced a “nonsense” feature last March that made customers feel like they were being “forced” to watch ads in their homes.
Now, Roku is deploying the same tactics as its rivals, gaining more market share and increasing the number of streaming households by 14% from last year.
Advertising…a lazy way to make money. I think @Roku is running out of ideas moving forward.
@rmsalt, X user
Roku already has static ad space on its home screen.
But at a recent earnings call where it was announced that Roku’s annual revenue had jumped to $755m (£602m), CEO Anthony Wood said:
“So this will be the first video ad you add to your home screen.”
Wood declined to say whether future video ads will autoplay.
However, it is suspected that Roku will also introduce autoplay ads like its competitors.
“We’re also testing other types of video ad units and looking at other experiences we can add to the home screen, where we can innovate more video ads,” Wood added.
“That’s why we’re working in a variety of ways to enhance the home screen to not only make it more valuable to viewers, but also more monetizable on home streams.”
“I’m hungry for money”
Like Amazon and Google customers in the past, Roku viewers have called the company “money hungry” and threatened to boycott the service if they can’t turn off autoplay.
Viewers have previously complained that autoplaying ads with sound can be frightening, especially if they had turned up the TV volume the night before.
“Yeah, if I did this and it autoplayed with audio, I would get rid of all my Roku devices,” one customer wrote on X (formerly Twitter).
Another added: “Today I was wondering why I can’t watch more ads on the devices I paid for??
“Good news for money-hungry steam companies. They should probably look at Apple TV. They believe they can make money without ads.”
A third viewer wrote, “Advertising…is a lazy way to make money. I guess @Roku has run out of ideas moving forward.”
Not added…
Analysis by Millie Turner, The Sun’s technology and science reporter
Tech companies are increasingly relying on advertising to make a profit, even though it’s, in the words of a customer, a “lazy way to make money.”
Instead of Roku and Fire TV hitting people’s TV screens with video ads, Netflix and Disney+ will be introducing ads to previously ad-free subscription tiers.
But at the cost of that, some customers like to forget that they and their eyeballs are the product, not just the service they’re paying for.
Customers know that advertising is a necessary evil when exchanging cash for TV shows, and have known since the first TV ad aired in 1941.
The intrusiveness of this new form of advertising, with videos that automatically play with audio as soon as the TV is turned on, is leaving customers with a persistent sense of anxiety.
People looking for good TV and compelling stories are increasingly turning to free-to-advertise TV (FAST) channels to escape the hamster wheel of paying for companies they secretly have a grudge against. I am.
Alternatively, viewers are choosing more questionable options, such as piracy, according to a slew of comments on social media, to the detriment of both the security of the technology and the film and television industry.
Companies’ desire to advertise does not seem to be waning.
It remains to be seen whether this trend will create space for more FAST apps, a reliance on piracy, or even more inevitable advertising.