YouTube announced that they will not be supporting 30-second video ads that users can’t skip, beginning next year.
“We’re committed to providing a better ads experience for users online. As part of that, we’ve decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers,” a YouTube spokesperson said in a statement.
First reported by Campaign, the change isn’t going to affect shorter ads, such as 20-second videos. Advertisers are going to be able to set those units as unskippable on the video platform. The short-form six-second bumper ads, which was introduced last year, will continue to be a focus.
Originally, the reason behind the 30-second ads had been designed to court traditional TV ad budgets. Even though advertisers may not like the shift, the argument that TV commercials can translate to digital appears to be losing. Other services, like Facebook, Snaptchat and Instagram have been able to get brands on board with shorter video formats as video continues to proliferate.