By Rhodri Morgan
Amazon Prime is set to launch adverts on its Prime Video streaming services in the UK next month unless customers pay £2.99 per month to remove them.
In a note circulated to customers and reported by the BBC, Amazon said it would be introducing the plans from January 29th but that it maintained the goal of running “meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”
The note added: “This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time.”
There are currently two pricing tiers for Amazon Prime subscriptions in the UK; £8.99 per month or £95 per year. A subscription includes access to Prime Video, Prime Music and other entertainment options as well as free Prime delivery.
The company said the £2.99 surcharge for removing adverts does not represent a hike in the Amazon Prime fee.
The rollout also covers customers in the US, Canada and Germany and Amazon plans to expand them to France, Italy, Spain, Mexico and Australia later in 2024.
As well as blockbuster film boxsets like Peter Jackson’s Lord of The Rings trilogy and hit TV shows such as The Boys and Jack Ryan, Amazon has become a major player in sports streaming in the US and UK.
To complement the immensely popular Thursday Night Football NFL product across the pond, the company holds the rights to a raft of Premier League football games throughout the season, including several top-flight fixtures in this period between Christmas and New Year.
The decision to include adverts in its services could be in response to a cooling off in Amazon’s streaming performance over the course of the year.
In a post-Christmas cull between January and May, while the cost of living crisis deepened, the company lost a total of 167,000 streaming subscriptions.
This downturn seems to have affected sales of goods on its e-commerce site too.
While the company does not release sales figures from its Prime events, consumer data agency Numerator’s tracker showed the average order size for Amazon’s annual shopping bonanza Deal Days was $54.47 — lower than the summer Prime sale of $58.67.
