Ad-free streaming is a luxury now
Ad-free streaming is a luxury now
无广告流媒体现已成为一种奢侈品
Steady price increases are pushing viewers toward cheaper, ad-supported tiers. 持续的价格上涨正将观众推向更便宜的含广告订阅方案。
How it started
曾经的起点
Streaming was once a reprieve from cable. Not only could you watch whatever you wanted at any given time, but you didn’t have to sit through five-minute-long commercial breaks. And the best part was the price: Netflix, for example, cost just $7.99 / month when it launched its standalone streaming service in 2010. Amazon’s Prime Video was the same, offering ad-free streaming as a perk with its Prime membership. Hulu was an outlier at the time, but that’s because it allowed you to stream ad-supported TV shows and movies for free. It later added a $7.99 / month Hulu Plus subscription, with limited advertising.
流媒体曾是人们摆脱有线电视的避风港。你不仅可以随时观看想看的内容，还无需忍受长达五分钟的商业广告。最棒的是价格：例如，Netflix 在 2010 年推出独立流媒体服务时，每月仅需 7.99 美元。亚马逊的 Prime Video 也是如此，作为 Prime 会员的福利提供无广告流媒体服务。当时的 Hulu 是个例外，因为它允许用户免费观看含广告的电视节目和电影。后来它增加了每月 7.99 美元的 Hulu Plus 订阅服务，包含少量广告。
But the commercial-free streaming model was so appealing that when companies launched rival streaming services, most made them ad-free by default. Disney Plus cost $6.99 / month when it launched in 2019, followed by the $4.99 / month subscription to Apple TV, and the launch of HBO Max’s $14.99 / month streaming service. (There were some exceptions, of course, like Paramount Plus, which launched with ads for $4.99 / month, and NBCUniversal’s Peacock, which offered some titles for free alongside a $4.99 / month ad-supported tier with access to all of its shows and movies.)
但无广告流媒体模式极具吸引力，以至于当各公司推出竞争性流媒体服务时，大多数默认都采用了无广告模式。Disney Plus 在 2019 年推出时每月仅需 6.99 美元，随后是每月 4.99 美元的 Apple TV 订阅，以及每月 14.99 美元的 HBO Max 流媒体服务。（当然也有一些例外，比如 Paramount Plus 推出时即包含广告，每月 4.99 美元；NBCUniversal 的 Peacock 则提供部分免费内容，并设有每月 4.99 美元的含广告方案，可观看其所有节目和电影。）
As the streaming industry matured and viewers settled into the services of their choice, many executives soon realized that they couldn’t make money just by adding new subscribers in an already saturated market. Moreover, Netflix lost subscribers for the first time in more than a decade in 2022, while the streaming businesses run by its competitors remained unprofitable. Streamers needed a solution — especially so they could keep spending the billions required to fill their libraries with movies and TV shows.
随着流媒体行业日趋成熟，观众也逐渐固定在自己选择的服务上，许多高管很快意识到，在市场已经饱和的情况下，仅靠增加新用户已无法盈利。此外，Netflix 在 2022 年十多年来首次出现用户流失，而其竞争对手运营的流媒体业务也一直处于亏损状态。流媒体平台需要一个解决方案——尤其是为了维持每年数十亿美元的投入，以填充其电影和电视节目库。
How it’s going
现状如何
In between steady waves of price hikes, major streaming services have adopted advertising one by one in a bid to boost profitability. HBO Max first rolled out a cheaper, ad-supported tier in 2021. Even Netflix, whose former CEO Reed Hastings said the service would never have ads, walked back on its promise by introducing its ad-supported plan in 2022. Disney Plus followed suit, and Amazon Prime Video automatically placed its subscribers in an ad-supported tier, forcing them to pay extra to get access to commercial-free viewing.
在持续的价格上涨浪潮中，各大流媒体服务为了提高盈利能力，纷纷引入了广告。HBO Max 于 2021 年率先推出了更便宜的含广告方案。就连曾宣称绝不植入广告的 Netflix 前首席执行官里德·哈斯廷斯（Reed Hastings），也在 2022 年食言，推出了含广告的订阅计划。Disney Plus 紧随其后，而 Amazon Prime Video 则自动将其订阅用户归入含广告方案，迫使他们支付额外费用才能享受无广告观看体验。
Now that nearly all of the most popular streamers have ads, the pricing gap between ad-supported and ad-free tiers has grown wider. Streaming services often target ad-free tiers with the biggest price increases, with Netflix most recently raising the price of its standard and premium plans by $2, compared to $1 for its ad-supported tier. Now, the price to go ad-free on Netflix is $19.99 / month (or $26.99 if you want 4K HDR) — more than double the original $7.99 / month subscription.
如今，几乎所有主流流媒体平台都植入了广告，含广告方案与无广告方案之间的价格差距也越来越大。流媒体服务通常对无广告方案进行大幅提价，例如 Netflix 最近将其标准和高级套餐的价格提高了 2 美元，而其含广告套餐仅上涨了 1 美元。现在，Netflix 无广告服务的价格为每月 19.99 美元（若需 4K HDR 则为 26.99 美元），是最初每月 7.99 美元订阅费的两倍多。
HBO Max similarly issued a $2 hike for ad-free subscriptions last year. It now costs $18.49 / month for its standard plan or $22.99 / month for premium, a sizable leap from its original $14.99 / month ad-free subscription. Prime Video also doubled the price to go ad-free earlier this year and locked 4K streams behind the pricier, $4.99 / month subscription that gets tacked onto your $14.99 / month Prime membership. And Disney Plus, which once offered an ad-free subscription for $6.99 / month, now costs $18.99 / month commercial free.
HBO Max 去年也对无广告订阅进行了 2 美元的提价。其标准套餐现在每月需 18.49 美元，高级套餐则为 22.99 美元，较最初每月 14.99 美元的无广告订阅费有了显著增长。Prime Video 今年早些时候也将去广告费用翻了一番，并将 4K 流媒体锁定在每月 4.99 美元的额外订阅费中，该费用需叠加在每月 14.99 美元的 Prime 会员费之上。而曾经提供每月 6.99 美元无广告订阅的 Disney Plus，现在的无广告价格已涨至每月 18.99 美元。
There’s a strategy behind this: Executives across the streaming industry have reported earning more average revenue per user (ARPU) on ad-supported tiers, as they rake in cash from viewer subscriptions and the ads they sell to them. In January, Netflix said its advertising business earned $1.5 billion in 2025, making up just a fraction of the company’s $45.2 billion total revenue. But Netflix’s ads tier is growing — now reaching more than 250 million viewers every month — and the company expects its advertising revenue to double to $3 billion this year.
这背后有着明确的策略：整个流媒体行业的高管们表示，含广告方案能带来更高的每用户平均收入（ARPU），因为他们既能从用户订阅中获利，又能从向用户投放的广告中赚取现金。今年 1 月，Netflix 表示其广告业务在 2025 年收入为 15 亿美元，仅占公司 452 亿美元总收入的一小部分。但 Netflix 的广告方案正在增长——每月覆盖超过 2.5 亿观众——公司预计今年的广告收入将翻倍至 30 亿美元。
More people are signing up for these ad-supported tiers as commercial-free plans grow more expensive. Among streaming services that offer cheaper, ad-supported plans, nearly half of their current subscribers in the US have signed up to the tier with ads, according to research from the analytics firm Antenna.
随着无广告套餐价格越来越贵，越来越多的人开始选择这些含广告方案。根据分析公司 Antenna 的研究，在提供更便宜含广告方案的流媒体服务中，近一半的美国现有订阅用户选择了含广告的套餐。
What happens next
未来走向
Apple TV remains the only major streaming service that doesn’t offer an ad-supported subscription — though questions remain about how long it will hold out. Apple currently shows ads during live broadcasts like Major League Soccer games. While some have speculated about Apple bringing ads to the rest of its service, the company pushed back on rumors, with its head of services Eddy Cue saying, “I don’t want to say no forever,” but “there are no plans.” Apple TV has steadily raised prices alongside other streamers and now costs $12.99 / month.
Apple TV 仍然是唯一一家不提供含广告订阅服务的主流流媒体平台——尽管人们对其能坚持多久仍存疑。苹果目前在职业足球大联盟（MLS）等直播节目中会播放广告。虽然有人猜测苹果会将广告引入其服务的其他部分，但该公司否认了这些传闻，其服务主管 Eddy Cue 表示：“我不想把话说死，”但“目前没有相关计划。”Apple TV 已随其他流媒体平台稳步提价，目前价格为每月 12.99 美元。
Meanwhile, Netflix is finding more ways to show ads to viewers, such as allowing brands to use AI to “blend” their ads with one of Netflix’s shows or movies. Other streamers are experimenting with different kinds of ads as well, with Peacock showing them on the profile selection menu and others invading paused screens. Unfortunately, viewers on a budget really have no other choice but to deal with ads — many of which are very repetitive or appear at the wrong times.
与此同时，Netflix 正在寻找更多向观众展示广告的方式，例如允许品牌利用人工智能将广告与 Netflix 的节目或电影“融合”。其他流媒体平台也在尝试不同类型的广告，例如 Peacock 在个人资料选择菜单中展示广告，而其他平台则将广告植入到暂停画面中。不幸的是，预算有限的观众确实别无选择，只能忍受这些广告——其中许多广告非常重复，或者出现在不合时宜的时间点。