M+E Connections
BB Media: Discovery+ Leads Streamers in Paid Ads
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A new analysis by media and entertainment data firm BB Media finds that Discovery+ is the streaming platform with the highest average of paid ads, topping HBO Max, Hulu, Paramount+ and Peacock.
A total of 254 inserted ads between all 5 streaming platforms were monitored by BB, with 83 percent of them being paid ads and the rest promotional. The top industries represented were food (17 percent), insurance (15 percent), trailers (13 percent) and cosmetics (8 percent).
“When identifying the average of paid and promotional ads in each streaming service, Discovery+ stands out as the one with the highest level of paid ads (98 percent) and the lowest percentage of promotional ones (2 percent),” BB said in a statement. “The other streaming platforms show relatively similar results: over 80 percent of HBO Max and Paramount+ ads are paid, while Hulu and Peacock have an average of over 70 percent paid ads.”
Discovery+ is also the platform with the highest percentage of advertisement time, with an average of 9 percent per title, while Hulu has only 3 percent. The latter shows ads that last between 6 and 45 seconds in its series, as opposed to films, which tend to last more than 60 seconds.
HBO Max’s original titles tend to have fewer ads than non-original ones, and they do not interrupt the video more than twice. With Paramount+, movies usually have a lower percentage of ads than series, and they show advertisement at the beginning and at the end.
Lastly, in Peacock´s case there is a distinction between business models: SVOD movies have pre-rolls (ads played before the video starts), while AVOD movies do not, except in kids content. Plus, its SVOD series do not show pre-rolls and advertising VOD series do.
