Amazon Prime Video will start showing ads next month

(NEW YORK) — Amazon will begin displaying advertisements in movies and TV shows on its Prime Video streaming service next month, the company said in an email to subscribers this week viewed by ABC News.

Customers will be offered an ad-free alternative for an additional $2.99 per month, the company added.

“This will allow us to continue investing in compelling content and keep increasing that investment over a long period of time,” the company said. “We aim to have meaningfully fewer ads than linear TV and other streaming TV providers.”

The notice to customers follows an announcement in September setting out plans to add advertisements to video content on Prime in early 2024.

The ads will be introduced in the U.S., U.K., Germany and Canada in early 2024, followed by France, Italy, Spain, Mexico, and Australia later in the year, the company said in the announcement.

The move at Amazon comes amid an industrywide shift toward the inclusion of advertisements across major streaming services.

Netflix — the most popular streaming service worldwide — made headlines last year when it launched a subscription tier with advertisements for $6.99 per month.

Max, which launched an ad-supported tier in 2021, offers the option for $9.99 per month.

A Prime Video subscription costs $8.99 per month, or customers access the service as a complimentary offering along with the company’s Prime membership service.

The introduction of advertisements in Prime video content will take place on Jan. 29, the company said.

Prime Video is often one of the top two drivers of customer sign-ups for the company’s Prime membership service, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said on an earnings call last month.

“We also have increasing conviction that Prime Video can be a large and profitable business in its own right,” Jassy said.

Last year, Amazon closed its $8.5 billion acquisition of MGM, a decades-old Hollywood movie studio. As part of the deal, the company acquired global TV rights to the “Lord of the Rings” franchise.

The company debuted an initial season of “The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power” in September 2022 and a second season of the fantasy series is forthcoming.