After having read your new feature that allows streamers to disable Pre-Rolls by playing enough ads (30 seconds = 10 minutes), I think you've missed the mark slightly.

I DO think it's a good idea to disable the pre-roll for people discovering new content. As such, I believe a better implementation of the no preroll idea is the following:

• No pre-roll for users the FIRST time they join your stream BUT a forced 30 second 10 minutes into the stream if they stay.

This solves two problems. First, it solves the problem of discouraging people from discovering new content. You have clearly identified an issue with pre-rolls in how it impacts new viewers and presented the current solution. Second, it solves the financial issue by running the ad they would have seen in the pre-roll. It's the best of ALL worlds.

Overall, ads on Twitch are reasonable and not too intrusive, but this one quirk makes it more difficult for small streamers to support each other.

If someone ends their stream by hosting mine, I would like to be able to thank them and welcome them and any viewers who came along with them. But at the moment that I receive the host notification, I have to assume that none of them can see me because an ad just started playing for them. And if I host another streamer at the conclusion of my stream, my viewers and I don't get to see their reaction unless without pre-loading their stream, or watching the VOD later, or enabling an adblocker.

Revenue from host-transition ads must be next to nothing, and this does not seem like something that is done to nudge people towards paying for Turbo because the hosted streamer obviously cannot assume that most of the viewers coming over to their channel have Turbo.

Pre-rolls on twitch are not working right now because they are ignorant and focus on maximizing profits instead of the viewer experience. The dodge rates are incredibly high.

Change the system, let the creators hook the viewers into their content first before you throw an ad on their screen. there are two ideas on how to do it:

Let the creators modify the first picture of the thumbnail preview. this will drastically change the look of the main page, but it gives creators an additional window to communicate with potential viewers. You can send a message to showcase your content, instead of having only a limited title to work with.

Another idea without altering the look of the browse tab would be a delay of the pre-roll. Don't play it right away, but after 2-3 minutes. that way viewers have enough time to find a stream they enjoy before they receive their first ad. Afterwards the viewer is clear from ads for a set time on the channel he's watching.

Both ideas give users the opportunity to arrive on a stream, or get some expectations about what's coming up. right now there aren't any, that's why the motivation to watch the ads is often times extremely low.

Would love to get more information on how automated mid-rolls will work -- and specifically instruction for streamers on how to avoid them, if possible.

In short, the idea your stream would be interrupted without your control is a scary concept. Either it's going to be better for streamers to control the mid-roll experience themselves, or the experience is something more experimental that isn't clear (vs. simply interrupting a stream).

In the Twitch Support initial Tweet it says "these [mid-roll ads] won't run if the viewer has an ad break." Can you clarify? FAQ seems to be missing how to control mid-rolls (e.g. randomly served) if the creator manually runs? It only discusses how to "disable pre-roll" in the FAQ.

As possible additional information, it would be great to get a potential range of how many viewers it might effect in what territories.

Regarding this page: https://help.twitch.tv/s/article/ad-experience-experiment?language=en_US

Preroll-disable functionality already exists, just have hypetrains add 5 minutes to that when they start, if the counter is at zero. Add more time if level-ups extend the hypetrain duration.

If a hypetrain is going, something hype is happening, right? Who wants to come into a channel during a HYPE moment, only to get slapped in the face with a preroll instead of joining in with everyone immediately?

The preroll revenue loss would be minimal, would encourage hypetrains (so a potential positive ROI), and be a win for everyone involved; adds functionality to the hypetrain product, and shows that Twitch cares about keeping the hype rolling full speed.

The size of a channel matters when you are looking to make ad revenue. Larger audiences are likely to have a larger number of potential ad viewers. Obviously, the sub/non-sub viewer ratio is important, but larger channels are likely to have a higher potential for ad revenue than smaller channels.

Scaling the time needed to disable pre-roll ads will encourage smaller channels to run ads. When pre-roll ads are disabled, there is a higher chance a new viewer will enter the channel potentially helping to grow that channel.

To "tag" along with the idea, add a tag under a preview window showing which channels have pre-roll ads disabled so the viewer doesn't waste time waiting through a pre-roll ad to see if they may like the channel's content.

Ads should be created to work with the live stream, and not force the live stream to work around ads. Shaping content around ad breaks feels scripted and takes away from the "live" experience. In most cases, there are not enough viewers in a smaller channel to encourage the streamer to run ads to increase their monthly income. So, in turn that channel does not help support the platform. Working to scale ad run times with the size of the channel has the potential to help both the streamer and the platform.

Pre-roll ads don’t belong on live content to begin with, but they should never be as long as typical commercials/ads. Imagine clicking on a stream that you’re excited about watching in that very moment (because you saw something interesting in the thumbnail or someone tweeted about something happening on that stream) and then after the website loaded and the video player loaded, waiting another 30+ seconds for the live stream to load. That’s the current experience with pre-roll ads. It breaks the in the moment or “you had to be there” experience of live content.
A 5 second pre-roll ad is a more tolerable amount of time to wait for a live stream to load.

For the love of god twitch, stop showing Ads the first 3 seconds you begin watching a channel.

Every-time I decide to start watching a new channel I am immediately bombarded with a minute of Ads. This usually leads me to just going back to a channel I have subbed to. Yeah, we all hate ads. No-one enjoys sitting through 4-9 Ads that can last from 15 - 45 seconds. And immediately playing this many Ads is mildly infuriating to say the least. I don't mind watching some Ads and supporting the Channel after at least seeing SOME content, instead of being *** blasted by Ads as soon as I start watching a stream. Something like 5 minutes of a buffer time before shoving the latest movie release or new fast food item into my unconscious psyche would be pretty neat! Just a thought <3

Give us the option to completely disable ads by "paying" you for the loss through taking a bit more of the revenue.

In my channel analysis ad income is less than 2% of the overall income, but (especially) pre rolls extremely reduced channel growth - which obviously would have raised my channel income much more than thos 2% for ads.

The numbers may vary from channel to channel, which is the reason to make it optional:
- No money loss for Twitch.
- Every streamer can decide for themselves, which is the best option.

Thanks for reading and have a nice day.

When a streamer triggers an ad break, a timer begins, indicating the amount of time pre-roll ads are disabled for new viewers. This timer currently begins at the start of the ad. For example, let's say you run a 90-second ad, and the Pre-Roll Disabled Timer begins at 40 minutes. You actually lose 90 seconds of that perk while your community is watching the ad break, and anyone who comes in during the ad break still sees the ad you're playing. Sure, you're not exactly getting a "pre-roll" but the whole point is to earn time where viewers don't have to see ads. When the timer begins with the ad, it doesn't feel fair.

My suggestion is that the timer begins after the ad break, so it's an accurate indicator of time where viewers will not have to see ads.

I'm running advertisements on social media to increase my audience on Twitch.
With these pre-roll ads, everyone that clicks my advertisement has to watch this pre-roll ad on Twitch, meaning there's A LOT of potential fans that are not able to watch my concept for 1 single second because the ads are scaring them away.
Growing an audience on Twitch generally means more subs => more revenue for Twitch AND the streamer.
That's why I had the idea to let streamers pay for disabling the pre-roll ads.

I know there's an option to run ads on the entire stream, disabling the pre-roll for a few minutes, but in this case I have run an ad every hour to make sure the audience coming from external websites are not viewing this pre-roll add, which is totally ridiculous.

I'm sure there's a lot of other streamer facing this issue when doing marketing on other channels.