YouTube will do away with unskippable 30-second ads next year

If you're not paying for YouTube Red, you're likely used to the many different types of advertising the video service features. But next year, one of the more irritating formats will be going away. YouTube says that it'll stop supporting "unskippable" 30-second pre-video advertisements in favor of shorter formats. A YouTube spokesperson confirmed the change with this statement: "We're committed to providing a better ads experience for users online. As part of that, we've decided to stop supporting 30-second unskippable ads as of 2018 and focus instead on formats that work well for both users and advertisers."

As to what might replace it, UK publication Campaign believes that YouTube will make more extensive use of the six-second unskippable video ad instead. While unskippable ads in any length are annoying, six seconds is a lot better than 30. Campaign also notes that any ad shorter than 30 seconds can be made unskippable, so you may still run into fairly long 20-second commercials still. But still, it seems like a pretty tacit admission that users aren't willing to wait that long to get to videos. We'll take it.