Isn’t is always frustrating to see an incredible amount of commercials during primetime programming? In NBCUniversal’s case, it’s doing something about excessive ads across its entire network. The company will be cutting back on primetime advertising during original programming.
According to Variety, the company said that it will be reducing the number of ads in a commercial break by 20 percent. At the same time, it will be decrease the amount of ad time in a given show by 10 percent.
The change follows an experiment the company did with Saturday Night Live starting in 2016, when it cut the show’s ad times by 30 percent. The company didn’t explain why it had cut advertisements during the show, but it was speculated that it was to attract millennial viewers who have become more accustomed to ad-free viewing pleasures like Netflix. After all, it’s easy for everyone to just bring you YouTube and watch SNL‘s best sketches.
After cutting the ads, NBC found that Saturday Night Live‘s ratings had actually went up. Because of this change, they company was able to charge more for fewer ads. Since this strategy was successful for the company, it’s starting to apply this across all of its original primetime lineup. In addition to this change, NBC will be introducing new types of ads (including longer ads) that it claims will give more value to the viewer instead of the traditional 30-second format. While ads are being reduced, we may start seeing product placements within shows because of fewer ad spots to sell.
