So mid-roll ads are going to happen, if we like it or not

How about telling the creator before they happen so that they still have time to do an ad break on their terms?

What if 10min before a mid-roll ad would take place the ad button in the stream manager turns red and displays a 10min countdown. The creator will have 10min to do an ad break on his/her terms - if he/she does, no (additional) mid-roll ad; if he/she doesn’t, play the mid-roll ad after the countdown is over

That way you get what you want which is people watching ads, while creators still get some sort of control over it

If you're going to force mid-roll ads, add these control tools to the dashboard:

1. A timer telling the streamer when the next forced ad will run.


2. The ability to run an ad on our own time, replacing the forced mid-roll.


3. Clear indications of how long we'll have "free" after an ad roll.


4. A clear indication of when the ad is running, and when it is complete.


5. A fairer revenue share for these ads.


6. A clear indication of how many users tuned out of the stream each ad, to remind both us and you how terrible forcing these ads is for any streamer who wishes to maintain an audience.

Pretty simple and as described in the title.

If I have Amazon Prime you can obviously track my viewing history, and use it to NOT show me ads for the shows I have seen.

Currently I get about 4 rotating ads (Cloak & Dagger, Hanna, Grand Tour, Jack Ryan).
Three of these I've already seen, and so whenever I get an ad for them now I just close out the Twitch desktop client and restart it - because that's faster and less annoying than watching the ad to completion.

So maybe you could tone down the ads, or at the very least don't show us the ads that 100% ARE OF NO INTEREST TO US BECAUSE WE ALREADY BOUGHT INTO/WATCHED YOUR PRODUCT.

Obviously we don't want Twitch to lose money and die out like other streaming platforms. The ads are a necessary evil. Let streamers control when the ads drop during the stream. Give them a requirement for how many ads have to be run per hour, or whatever the terms are, but let them determine when they run. Bathroom & food breaks would be ideal. Some streamers find the beginning of the stream critical, so running pre-roll is a bad idea for them. If the streamer doesn't run the required number of ads, hit them where it hurts - their wallets. That's a guaranteed way to make sure enough ads are run to hit revenue targets, and the streamers can benefit from it.

Also, increase the variety of the ad pool. Nothing drives viewers crazier than seeing the same stupid ad every single time an ad rolls.

Consider a minimum viewer count/average for ad requirements. If a streamer only averages 1 viewer, they shouldn't be required to run those ads. That's unfairly squashing the competition. Wait until they get to a higher number, like 500 viewers on average (for example). Then require the ads for them.

Part of the issue that the currently implementation of ads completely passes over is audio. Twitch did a lot of work to add this new picture-in-picture mode, that moves the stream above chat, so the audience isn't "missing" anything. However this is a flawed idea.

You see, visuals to a stream are only 50% at a maximum and can be even less depending on the content. That's where audio and interaction come in. A large number of viewers come to interact with streamers. They come to see and hear the streamers reactions to awesome moments in games, esports, announcements. They come to be a part of the content and experience it.

The current implementation of mid-roll ads completely takes that all away. We quite literally saw a clip of a streamer watching the PlayStation event this past week who was seeing a cool unveiling of the new (but controversial) Harry Potter game, who then literally got a mid-roll ad in the unveiling. Sony isn't going to run ads so people don't miss the conference.

So my suggestion is to add what's known as a "lower third" to the stream. Easiest comparison is to YouTube. It's a small banner picture, or gif ad, that appears over the center middle portion of the video player. It's not super intrusive, it's not muting stream audio, nor shifting the entire video player. And viewers can just exit out of that ad whenever they want, or click on it to be taken to the advertisers site for more info.

Optionally, there's a lot of wasted space just in the overall Twitch UI that could have banner ads as well to serve the same purpose.

I understand that Twitch is a business. I understand that Twitch needs money to operate as all businesses do. But Twitch needs to understand that their "product" is the viewer experience, and automated mid-roll ads tarnishes the entire experience. If a streamer wants to manually run ads, then by all means allow them to, but forcing this system on people will absolutely drive the quality of streams down, drive the quality of the viewing experience down, and just overall make people unhappy.

As a daily viewer, I am asking, please consider other alternatives like Lower Thirds before sticking to this.

Plz stop making me watch 6 ads in a row. It is very simple. It is absolutely ridiculous that I should have to sit thru 6 ads whenever a streamer decides to run some ads... 6 ads? are you actually kidding me? that is absolutely absurd... If you think that the way you treat people is okay... you got another thing coming, People will not sit thru that and neither will I. About 2 seconds from just stopping using twitch purely out of morals... You probably think I don't matter, I'm sure. But you better believe more will follow... Not bcuz of me, not bcuz of anything, but bcuz they will not stand for your sellout ***** and your lack of respect for the customer.

I usually do not post in threads or forums, but the recent mandate to force you to watch ads have pissed me off so much that here I am. I am writing this because these ads are just ridiculous. There used to be a time when twitch prime users were not forced to suffer this cruel and indecent punishment. I have twitch prime and I'm currently subscribed to TSM_Viss. Now my experience is all fine and dandy when I watch his channel ,AD FREE, the way watching video games should be. I mean think about it, we are watching people play video games. Depending on the type of game that you're watching, an ad that interrupts the stream for 30-60 seconds can cause you to miss the most important part of the game. For example, when streamers get together for tournaments I like to bounce around from stream to stream getting the different perspectives. But now since twitch forces you to watch an ad every time you switch streams, you best believe I'm not bouncing around from stream to stream watching endless ads. I was watching the code red tourney on Docs channel, and the dude was killing slaying bop bop bop clean em up. Only about six ppl left on the map and this point I'm on the edge of my seat with my popcorn waiting to see how this is going to end. Then BOOM an ad hits. Im like okay, no big deal one ad and I'm back in it. The ad finishes and to my dismay it was followed by another, then another then another then another then another then another. At this point I want to slam my laptop on the ground. Needless to say, when it finally got back to the game play the match was over. So frustrating. If you people at twitch are gonna force us to watch ads, the least you can do is come up with an algorithm that only plays ads when the streamer has some downtime (i.e. talking to chat, eating some food, going to the bathroom, or waiting in a lobby). I mean I GET IT, twitch is streaming thursday night football games, cool. Now do I got to see that add over a 100 times or can I watch some video game content now. I GET IT, samsung got a new game phone with a huge beautiful screen (sigh), can I get back to watching the final circle in blackout now. As am typing this, Ive watched the same nurf gun ad like three times already, and still dont plan on buying a nurf gun in the future (unless of course it gives me the ability to do somersaults like the asian guy in the ad). Anyways, before I get too carried away. I am writing this to say the ads are too much and are destroying my viewing experience on twitch. I will stop watching streams altogether if you guys don't fix this issue. I know you guys are probably like so what if you stop watching we got millions of other people who will continue to watch. That's fine, but I doubt I'm the only one feeling this way about this issue. Youtube has ads, and certain ads you can even skip. But one of the major differences with youtube and twitch is that twitch is LIVE (for the most part) and youtube is not (for the most part... I know they got live streams on that platform too but c'mon guys who are we kiddin we are watching already made videos on youtube. So when youtube interrupts your video AT LEAST YOUR NOT MISSING CONTENT!!! And I hate to say youtube so much on a twitch.tv forum but hey it is what it is. Free advertisement for YouTube I guess. So let me end it with this, stop the money grabbing TWITCH! Fix this issue or you will notice a decline in viewership.