## **The 30 second YouTube TV ad will appear instead of 2 consecutive 15 second ads. In addition, the platform is also testing a new feature when users pause videos.** According to *The Verge*, YouTube’s latest decision for TV is about to make users more upset. Announced at the YouTube Brandcast event on May 17, the video streaming platform said it will soon add “non-skippable” ads with a length of 30 seconds, for featured content groups. YouTube says viewers will see one 30-second ad instead of two consecutive 15-second ads. This doesn’t mean shorter ads will disappear altogether. The 30-second ad will be available to advertisers via YouTube Select, a platform that targets the top 5% of content on YouTube. The company claims 70% of impressions on YouTube Select come from TVs, making this group of devices ideal for long-form ads. “More and more viewers are watching YouTube on the big screen at home. Viewers, especially young people, no longer distinguish the type of content they are watching,” said Neal Mohan, CEO of YouTube. In addition, YouTube also announced that it will begin testing ad placement when viewers pause a video on a networked TV. The company calls this action “pause the experience,” which is similar to the ad-pause feature introduced by the Hulu platform a few years ago. Judging from the example image shared by AdWeek, the new YouTube ad will appear as a banner around the video and can be hidden by pressing the dismiss button. Currently, YouTube has not mentioned when to implement one of these changes. In May, the platform revealed that it was testing a message that reads, “No YouTube ad blocker allowed,” to encourage viewers to subscribe to YouTube Premium.
