Amazon Prime Video has made a major decision on ads on its platform.

It's being reported that Prime Video will implement ads beginning in early 2024 for the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Canada. France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia will also receive the change later in the year.

Ads aren't completely new to Prime Video. Amazon's platform acquired the rights to Thursday Night Football. Those broadcasts feature commercial breaks, as any football game does, but now they will implement that with other titles.

Though it's unclear how many ads will be thrown into a given title, Amazon claims they will be “limited.” The goal for this change is “to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”

Last year, Amazon made $38 billion from ad revenue. That's a small percentage of its $502 billion total revenue, but still a chunk nonetheless.

The $14.99/month subscription fee will remain. However, those who don't want ads on their Prime Video viewing experiences can pay an additional $2.99/month.

All of the streaming platforms seem to be moving into this direction. Perhaps Prime Video's ad breaks will be similar to Peacock's. On Peacock, their ad breaks range from 30-60 seconds to my recollection.

Prime Video also has sibling platforms such as Freevee and Twitch. Both of those are ad-supported. Some of the originals that will now have ad breaks including The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, The Boys, Tom Clancy's Jack Ryan, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, The Wheel of Time, and Reacher.