Remove mid-roll ads
Cancel the testing of mid-roll ads on affiliate and partner channels. Your viewer base doesn't want this and creators don't want ads playing out of their control interrupting their content
As we announced on Twitter earlier, we have concluded the mid-rolls experiment. Thank you all for your comments and the incredible momentum you’ve contributed to this topic.
There have been many great suggestions, both in this thread and in the Ads forum that we have taken back to the team for consideration. It’s important to know that ads are essential to the future of Twitch, however we want to make things as painless as possible. Please still upvote, share, comment, and create new ideas in this forum so that we may continue to benefit from all of your passionate influence.
Announcement: https://twitter.com/TwitchSupport/status/1306709495196852225?s=20
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pellamore commented
1) Allow streamers to opt out.
2) Streamers NEED more clarity on exactly how often they should be running ads in order to avoid midrolls. As creators we are the only ones who know when to cue ads when they will be least disruptive. Anything that takes control out of creators' hands is a bad move. -
steviesfather commented
I think having banner ads could be a great replacement for this.
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shay_the_skunk commented
Look, we understand, but you need to do better than forcing ad advertisement in the middle. This is just bad business for us you understand. You will see a short term gain in revenue on advertisements, and then you'll see a average users per day drop in about the same ranges. You want average users per day to go up to gain more advertisement revenue. You won't 'lock in' audience like youtube has already done, or you'll see a plummet in ad revenue due to people using ad block instead. In otherwords, as an analyst who has 10 years of experience, this is a bad call and you, as a business, should reconsider what you actually are making money from instead of listening to folks who aren't doing anything but chasing money now.
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TuecerPrime commented
I'm not against ads, but your user experience seems to capitalize on FOMO to drive subs, which is at least a little predatory in a marketing sense.
If you would like to have content creators run more ads then you need to create an experience that rewards them and at the same time doesn't drive away viewers. Abysmal CPM and multiple ads in a row do not do either of these things and frankly hurt you in the long run.
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Kaldemar commented
YouTube has the option to skip the add after a few seconds. I think having mid-roll ads could be more bearable if you could skip after some seconds. Then it's up to the add to be so interesting that the user will choose to watch it.
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embrs commented
Lower viewer channels arent going to make money ads enabled or not, if people arent watching the stream they arent watching the ads either.
The top few percent of creators make the money, then 50% of their sub money goes to twitch and ultimately fund the site for everyone else. Ads wont provide a way for small creators to fund themselves, currently its death by 5.9 million cuts.
So maybe whats needed is a way for small channels to cover their costs and there be a cost benefit for them to do so. Adapt hype trains into funding goals and put them on all channels, while the streamer wont make any of it till they get a sub button they can gain some features on a pay-as-you-go basis if their channel is funded, which features might be upto them. Maybe they get credits with a 30 day lifespan that they can redeem for a feature, like disabling pre/mid roll ads, higher bit rate for a day, a short listing boost that puts them top of other channels with the same viewer numbers, given these choices a creator might pay to boost their own channel and even just 1 subs worth of money probably makes more than that channels monthly ad revenue if they are trying to crawl out of the zero viewer depths
And more importantly it returns some agency over these things to the creator
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ryanxjolly commented
Streamers need to have an option to opt out of this awful decision Twitch has made.
I get that ads are a big part of your revenue, but Twitch won't exist if no one actually used your website to watch streams. People stop watching cable TV because of ads, so why do you think introducing midrolls is a good idea? You're literally pushing your viewers away because of your greed. -
Careless_Rex commented
Banner ads for live content, midroll for VODS similar to how youtube does it. Load in ads are a hassle but make WAY more sense for live content. Certain genres would suffer massively from midroll ads. ASMR, D&D, Roleplay come to mind. These are massive genres making you lots of money. You don't want to disrupt that with midroll ads. Instead give more incentive for streamers to schedule ad breaks during brbs. This will have the added bonus of promoting a healthy life style by encouraging streamers to take regular breaks to stretch and such. And make increasing discoverability a priority. Currently, when people can't find the streamers they want to watch they leave and go to youtube. Prioritize viewer retention and put quality streamers in front of people's faces so viewers don't have to navigate an ocean of mediocrity. Your future stream juggernauts are being buried under so much horrible content and you're bleeding money from it. And loopholes push some very questionable content to the top. Like stream embeds being considered an ok form of viewbotting. This further buries quality content in favor of mediocrity. And people don't stay and watch mediocrity. The more people staying on twitch the more ads watched. You also have a VOD system that doesn't keep people watching. Perhaps recommend videos and clips to people as well as live streams. Give incentive to the viewer like unlock a new global emote if you watch x hours of vods/clips. A global badge for watching vods, etc. This will keep people on the site and make midrolls on VODs more sustainable. Discoverability remains your absolute weakest point. It's borderline non-existent. I'm not saying it's easy to fix but midrolls for live streams will make the problem worse. Horrible discoverability is costing you a boatload of money. Shove the good streams in peoples faces, not ads. Ads in the middle of live streams will make people leave or wait for the vods to be posted on youtube to watch. That is NOT what you want.
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HarryGowland commented
This is going to kill channels that rely on narrative content - if a mid-roll plays during a critical moment, it's just going to cause people to bounce. This is a terrible idea.
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CloudLupus commented
you already have shown proof of concept of PiP by muting and minimizing the stream to play an ad. Invert the logic put the ad in a PiP
Use the other space in the stream for an ad.
Mid roll ads are a bad user experience due to the nature of live content. Unlike on demand content where you can pause the content and roll the ad to then resume the content in a live setup you miss stuff.
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MxZenith commented
Banner ads, sidebar ads, ads around the stream are ALL better option than mid-rolls. As a small streamer, mid-rolls will kill my viewership, and it's ridiculous that this is a thing. Even making mid-roll an opt-in with the other options would be preferable to this. I get that money is important, but this could end up costing more than it brings in, because this will drive streamers from twitch to other platforms.
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Pizza_Yeti commented
I think that it would be a better alternative to have banner ads or side bar ads. Too much of live stream is dependent on viewers being able to see the content as it's happening. As many others have said, running a mid-roll ad would ruin that experience.
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CrystalENVT commented
Put ads around the stream, put ads on the front page, have image "banner" ads overlayed on top of the stream, but DON'T do the current mid-roll ad setup. Missing out on the audio (& most of the video) literally destroys the viewer's experience
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KGDFMD commented
Let streamers opt out of this program, mid roll ads will kill viewership for affiliates and smaller streamers and turn away new and returning members of twitch. If a new viewer has to sit through 1-2 intro ads and then something amazing happens on stream such as a world record or someone's personal goal being fulfilled, but right before the climax of the event 3 ads play for some random products that blasts over the small mini player on the corner, that viewer is going to leave and go somewhere else and destroy that potential community growth. Either develop a new method or let streamers opt out of this new "feature" otherwise you will be directly interfering with streams and turn away many of your returning and new viewers/members.
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Cupara commented
Mid-roll ads will cause affiliates and partners to lose viewers and subs as they are out of the control of the affiliate/partner. Letting the affiliate/partner choose their own ad to run and when is much better than mid-roll ads.
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BowTieDaniels commented
Forced mid roll ads is a terrible experience for viewers and is a pain for streamers having a live conversation with chat. The streamer would be stuck waiting for a response since the viewer is in an ad or never get a replying since the viewer missed the conversation entirely and that could leave the viewer feeling ignored.
Alternatives:
-Bottom third ads that pop up over the player
-Permanent banner ads above/below the video player
-Permanent ad placed above chat
-Have an ads widget streamers can place in their panels
-While not ideal have an optional bot streamers can enable in their chat that can post an occasional advert
-Let streamers control what ads are shown I don't want to leave it to chance that a condom ads runs on my stream
-Create an ad toolkit streamers can actively integrate in their streams and overlays
-Small banner ads can be squeezed into other places like the emote and channel point menus
-Offer additional services that streamers can purchase and subscribe to (like pre-made overlays, more in-depth analytics, coaching services, buy boosted time that can put your stream in a spot light)
-Allow streamers to pay a monthly fee to Twitch in exchange for additional perks, (special support badge or icon, more emote slots, custom sub train emotes, guaranteed quality options for affiliates, access to new features first, bigger VOD history, longer clips, etc) and these perks are lost if they stop paying the fee.
-Banner ads on other pages like the stream team page
-Squeeze ads into the recommended and followed channels side bar
-Is it possible to integrate with Amazon.com and sell merch that Twitch takes a cut of?
-Addition of Prime Video content people can watch ads during or that drives people from Prime Video to Twitch and have a new audience discover streams
-Ads before clips and/or even after clipsI am sure there are more ideas out there, but if I were able to come up with this many during my lunch break at work, I'm betting a room full of people spending a few days on this can come up with more and better ideas than what I've provided.
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Swift_Rhino commented
Mid stream ads are not the solution to increase ad revenue. There are other options: banner around the edge of the stream, give the streamer the option to choose when to run the ad, like how live sports ad breaks aren’t always every 15 mins. Make the ads in a small box when they are running. Muting the streamer and putting them in a small box down the corner, is not the solution. That could happen during an important part of the stream.
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snarkDADmin commented
Please consider some of the options mentioned in this thread instead of forcing intrusive ads on streams. https://twitter.com/themilliebug/status/1306168686299013121?s=21
There's got to be a better way than harming viewers (and subsequently your streamers, particularly partners) with a blanket all size fits none approach.
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Skilletfan93 commented
No.
*edit* this is all I have to say to Twitch. No. Bad *swats the higher ups*
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ChiefFredbird commented
This "experiment" has broken many 3rd party viewing apps. Twitch refuses to allow API access tokens to pull Turbo subscription status information. Therefore, users who are actively paying Twitch money to NOT see ads are being FORCED to view them now. This is unacceptable and must be addressed immediately.