Earlier this week, YouTube Users Started Reporting 90-Second Ad Breaks appearing in videos that stream to televisions, apparently expanding the 30-second release that initially began last year. YouTube has officially responded to these claims, but in doing so, it raises more questions than answers.
in a Reply to a popular Twitter account right Regarding reports about these extended ad breaks, the YouTube team said that its app does not currently use non-skippable 90-second ad breaks, nor is it actively testing this type of format. YouTube also said it is “investigating this further,” although it’s not particularly clear what that means in the context of this experience. Several viewers posted similar accounts, including virtually identical images, even pointing out that the user interface initially promises the ability to jump in “over 90 seconds.”
A YouTube representative also contacted 9to5Google to share the company’s official response posted on Twitter while also reiterating those exact comments.
None of this so far specifically provides an answer as to because These reports started appearing this week if 90-second ad breaks are not actually taken. If this is a bug, you’d think YouTube would lean in that direction, rather than just saying it’s “investigating this further.” If it’s an accidental release, well, that’s not far off from A/B testing. Frankly, I’m having a hard time finding an explanation that doesn’t involve some A lot of work is being done to experiment with this new format.
We’ve asked YouTube for more comment on how these ad breaks started appearing in the first place, if it’s not something the company is actively testing, and we’ll update if we hear back. For now, if you’ve seen 90-second unskippable ads while streaming YouTube videos to your TV, share your experience in the comments; we would love to know.
Update 4/10: YouTube reached out with the following statement, confirming that this week’s 90-second ad breaks were the result of an error.
We determined this was due to a bug that caused inaccurate, higher timers to be displayed for shorter ads. We are implementing a fix now. As we said, we don’t have a 90-second non-skippable ad format and this wasn’t a test.
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