YouTube will finally ditch those pesky, unskippable, 30-second video ads; to try other formats

In what will come as sweet relief to the many that have not had the pleasure of using Adblock, Google has confirmed that it will ditch those egregious, 30-second, unskippable ads.

Speaking to the BBC, Google confirmed the plan and reportedly said that it wanted to work on “formats that work well for both users and advertisers.”

YouTube serves up ads to users in many forms. Small, pop-up ads are annoying enough, as are the longer, skippable 30-second ads (you still have to sit through 5 seconds of them though). Unskippable, 30-second ads, however, are anathema.

You have no option but to watch them, they can pop up at any time and refreshing the page rarely helps. They’re persistent and frustrating. While some of us who actually use AdBlock might feel kindly towards our favourite YouTuber and disable ad-blocking on occasion, frustrating ads like these are what make us go back.

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Will Smyth, Head of Media at Agenda21 tells the BBC that the 30-second ad is just a legacy from the TV days, a format that made sense on TV but has little place in a modern, internet-savvy world.

Advertisers need to get more creative. And admit it, you do have more respect for the advertiser that can plug their brand in 5-seconds than one that can tries to do it in 30.