The YouTube team seems to be looking for new ad formats that are less annoying. Invasive or intrusive ads are often one of the reasons users turn to adblockers. YouTube seems to be aware of this, as they are testing the Picture-in-Picture (PiP) format to make ads more bearable.
According to the official announcement, the company is testing the new PiP ad format, first on live streams. On YouTube, accounts enabled for monetization can set ads that appear in the middle of the video playback (also known as mid-roll ads). These ads are quite intrusive, as they appear in full screen while stopping the video or live stream playback until you can skip them.
YouTube live stream ads to display in PiP format for some as a test
Creators can set mid-roll ads on both regular videos and live streams. They can also let the platform automatically decide at what point in the video the ads play or decide it manually. In this regard, the YouTube support page says the following:
“Monetized channels without rights management can set mid-roll ad defaults for future live streams at the channel level. Channel-level settings let you choose monetization settings that will be the default for any newly created live streams. To choose your channel level settings: Open the Live Control Room and then In the bottom-left corner, click Settings.”
That said, the YouTube team seems to be looking to make ads less annoying for users by displaying them in a PiP window. This means that ads in this format will no longer pause the live stream, nor will they take up your entire screen. According to the company, the feature is being tested on “select” devices and users, so it is a limited-scope test.
A potential measure to reduce adblocker use
It is likely that YouTube is looking for less annoying ad formats to reduce the use of adblockers. However, there are some questions pending until we see the new format in action. For example, what will happen to the sound in video ads? Will the ad audio play over the livestream video? That would be pretty annoying too. Also, if the format is successful, will it reach normal videos? We’ll just have to wait and see how the PiP ad format implementation on YouTube will work to find out.
2024-08-07 15:08:33