Andyross Roku, owner of one of the most popular connected TV operating systems in the country, walks a fine line when it comes to advertising. Roku’s OS lives on low-priced smart TVs, streaming sticks, and projectors. To make up the losses from cheaply priced hardware, Roku is dependent on selling advertisements throughout its OS, including screensavers and its home screen. That business model has pushed Roku to experiment with new ways of showing ads that test users’ tolerance. The company claims that it doesn’t want ads on its platform to be considered intrusive, but there are reasons to be skeptical about Roku’s pledge. https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2025/04/roku-tech-patents-prove-its-potential-for-delivering-interruptive-ads/
Somewhat-Reticent Free-To-Air broadcast TV ads have been interrupting for a few years now, right? Most show scenes are designed with graceful commercial breakpoints, but coordinating with them may take some labor expense. ( Unless that can be automated, of course. )
antdude Somewhat-Reticent Free-To-Air broadcast TV ads have been interrupting for a few years now, right? … A few years? They had been around since B&W days!
urbanriot Somewhat-Reticent Free-To-Air broadcast TV ads have been interrupting for a few years now, right? Well not just that but also in the streaming world there’s Google TV, Pluto, and Plex. This doesn’t seem too out of the ordinary. I don’t mind ads on those free platforms but that’s probably because TV ads have existed most of my life.
Somewhat-Reticent antdude urbanriot Not talking about ads’ presence. Talking about the timing of ad placement - interrupting flow of show, instead of coordinating with breaks between scenes. ( And then there’s proportion - ads crowding out show )
lesmikesell urbanriot I don’t mind ads on those free platforms but that’s probably because TV ads have existed most of my life. The thing is that the free services almost always have a pre-roll ads before showing any of the program you want. So ‘channel-surfing’ like you can do on broadcast TV just doesn’t work. You have to already know what you are looking for instead of peeking at what is on.