YouTube to double pre-roll ads, so there’s less interruption later

It’s a familiar bugbear.

There you are, watching a nice, long YouTube video, when an ad — usually with a stock soundtrack of a jangly ukulele and a glockenspiel — annoyingly rams itself somewhere midway.

YouTube has a TV-inspired solution to the issue, announcing it will trial running two skippable pre-roll ads together, as per a blog post published Wednesday.

That means it’s less likely that ads will pop up in the middle of a video, with YouTube estimating users will experience up to 40 percent fewer interruptions by ads in a session.

OK, it might not seem like much. YouTube said it’s in response to research that shows viewers are “quite sensitive” to the frequency of ad breaks, especially while watching longer videos. Ah yes, remember how annoying ads were during those days of watching a movie on TV? 

YouTube said it’ll introduce the new experience on desktops this year, which will be followed by mobiles, then TVs. 

The change seems to be also good news for advertisers, with YouTube claiming an 8 to 11 percent increase in unique reach in early experiments.

It’s another in a line of experiments by YouTube to try and get people to watch ads, with the rollout of non-skippable ads for creators, interactive ads, and vertical formats.

You can’t avoid them, so they might as well work for you.