The next time you sit down to watch YouTube on your TV, you might notice fewer ads breaking up the video you’re watching. That’s because YouTube is making ads on TVs appear less frequently, but in exchange, you’ll have to sit through longer commercials.
YouTube started testing longer but less frequent ad breaks in September, and now they’re launching across all TVs. The change means you’ll see an updated countdown timer in the bottom-right corner of your screen that will now show how long you have left until the entire ad break ends or when you can skip.
YouTube previously displayed how many ads were included in the break in the top-left corner of your screen, along with a countdown timer for each individual ad. Along with the new ad frequency, YouTube is expanding ads on Shorts to TVs. Just like on mobile and the web, you’ll now see ads in between Shorts that you can skip through using your remote.
While I can’t say I’m too happy that I’ll get ads in between Shorts on TVs, I am kind of glad about the change to ad breaks on regular videos, as I hopefully won’t get as many small interruptions while I’m watching two-hourlong deep dives. YouTube has had a major focus on ads and getting people to watch them this year. The company added unskippable 30-second ads to its TV app and has even gone so far as to put restrictions on ad blockers.
