Amazon Prime adding ads, wither Watch Parties….

Updated on December 27, 2023 By Ken Begg 16 Comments

Hey, gang. Just got a notice that Amazon Prime is adding “limited” ads. I mean, I get it, free video isn’t really their main services. There is a highly ad-free tier for $3 a month, but I’m wondering how this will work for Watch Parties. If everyone gets the ads synced at the same time it will be annoying about not entirely awful. However, if they are more randomized and people get them at different times, that will be chaos. Also, if some people get the ad-free tier and some don’t, does that mean some will have the movie run straight through while others have interruptions that will throw everyone’s timing off? So we’ll just have to see. Hopefully Amazon will work this to be the least disruptive possible. We’ll just have to see, I guess.

Next Watch Party a week from Friday.

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  • Beckoning Chasm

    Good grief, Amazon is throwing BILLIONS at vanity movie projects that no one wants to see. Maybe they should cut down on that and spare people the ads. We are already paying a monthly fee after all.

  • Carl

    “Whither”.

    “Wither” means to shrivel up.

  • I don’t think it’ll affect watch parties that much. I think we’re all connected to the host, and whatever the host gets in terms of ads the guests get as well. Might be wrong on this, but…

  • I was really irritated when I got that notice, not sure which way I will jump as far as the extra fee. But then I remembered that I have Prime for the shipping and that the movies have always just been a happy bonus, so getting mad is a bit dumb. I do agree though that continuing to pump out exclusive content that everyone hates, that costs billions, and then trying to get the customers that don’t want it to pay for it, is not a formula for long-lasting financial success.

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    I hope the ads are somewhat tailored. I hate getting some noisy preview when watching something tame. There is also the oddball ads when watching Pluto, Freevee, tubi etc. I’ll be watching a Gene Autry film on a weekend morning and then getting an ad for a feminine grooming product.

  • Ken_Begg

    That’s Jennifer Salke, who is basically Amazon’s Kathleen Kennedy. She finally got called on the carpet for expensive bombs like Citidel and Rings of Power (budgeted at half a billion!) and Wheel of Time, and for massively overpaying for films like Air. It’s pretty clear that she was basically given Daddy’s credit card and spent insanely so as to be able to brag at dinner parties that she was hobnobbing with people like Matt Damon.

    Meanwhile, far cheaper shows like Reacher actually do great numbers.

    That said, again, the video arm of Prime is but one of many benefits afforded those with a Prime membership. To me it’s a bonus, as I mostly have it for the two-day shipping.

  • Ken_Begg

    This is pretty good. After spending $300 million on Citidel, Salke responded to criticism by saying, “Given
    the choice of making it mediocre or [ffing] great — we made the right
    call there. And at the end of the day, our customers will be the judge.”

    Glad they didn’t decide on mediocre.

    Rotten Tomatoes score: Critics 50% fresh, Audience 63% fresh. Also, the show seems to have failed every week it aired to land in that week’s Nielsen’s Top 10 Streaming Shows.

  • Tubi does have the advantage of significantly fewer ads than the other free streamers, unless it is one of the rare occasions when watching something currently on the air.I saw a breakdown by service somewhere, and it isn’t even close.

  • Eric Hinkle

    This will be an odd question, but what do you think of an argument I’ve heard that these insanely overpriced films and series are part of some money-laundering scheme? I don’t know enough about either money or film-making to tell if they’re serious or not.

  • Gamera977

    About half of what I watch on Amazon Prime is FreeVee which has ads anyway. So, I’m not sure if it’s not a bad idea to drop Amazon and just go with them. I don’t really order all that much stuff from Amazon anymore.

    Anyway I’ll keep my subscription next year if just to attend the watch parties.

  • Ken_Begg

    I mean, that might be part of it, but I really think all these being just being idiots is a lot more convincing. And losing hundreds of millions of dollars per film is a poor return for laundering.

    14 movies this one cost (just production budget, not marketing) $200 million dollars or more. One of them…ONE OF THEM…actually went somewhat into profit at the box office. That was Guardians 3. Every other one failed to break even, in many cases ruinously.

  • Ken_Begg

    I appreciate that, although I always hate to ask people to spend money they otherwise wouldn’t. Still, the parties wouldn’t be the same without you.

  • kgb_san_diego

    While there surely is enough money sloshing around in AAA movie production to make laundering possible, there just seem to be too many eyes on the books to hide it well for any amount of time…

  • 🐻 bgbear_rnh

    None of these types of services have too many commercials since they are only paying for older content. New stuff on Discovery or History channels get the most commercials to cover costs.

  • Eric Hinkle

    Thanks. I guess some people prefer thinking of it as there being some evil scheme behind it all rather than everyone involved being just that dumb.

  • They vary pretty widely by service. I saw a break down chart recently that I wish I could find right now, but best was Tubi, averaging less than 4 minutes of commercials per hour and worst was Paramount Plus whose ad supported tier averaged 16 minutes an hour (i.e. exactly the same as commercial TV). I have both and the difference is significant.