YouTube: Even more advertising on Smart TVs – Google launches new Pause Ads for paused videos (photo)

In recent months, Google has increased the advertising pressure on the video platform YouTube increased and is now going even further: The pause ads that were first announced a few weeks ago are now appearing for the first time in users who stream YouTube videos on their Smart TVs. Users’ enthusiasm is likely to be limited.

For over a year now, it has been noticeable that YouTube is increasing the advertising pressure and is playing more and more ads that users cannot skip. In addition, the ban on ad blockers has been introduced and now extended to many other apps, all of which have led to a jump in sales. Now a new advertising format is becoming visible to the first users, which was first announced a few weeks ago and has been in the planning stages for a long time: Pause Ads.

The pause ads are advertisements that are played on smart TVs when a video is paused. Instead of just making video suggestions, the main video will be made smaller and then an advertising banner will be shown in the form of a sponsored block. The first announcement also mentioned large-scale commercials, although only the first variant is currently shown. They have apparently been testing this for some time and have received very positive feedback internally (presumably mainly from the finance or advertising department).

It is unclear whether commercials are actually played or whether they are just advertisements placed next to the video. And if they are commercials, the question is of course whether they can be skipped or whether the pause is extended as a result. Another question will be whether these videos are played with sound. Because when you pause, you normally expect not only the video to stop, but also silence. And the last question: are advertisers really very interested in commercials that users may not even see? After all, you didn’t press the pause button for nothing…

» YouTube on Smart TV: This is how the new interface with the split player view was created (gallery)