Amazon’s Prime Video to incorporate commercials next year. Ad-free tier will cost $3 more

Amazon will be adding advertisements to shows and movies streamed on its Prime Video platform early next year, the tech and e-commerce giant said Friday morning.

Amazon said Prime Video will have “meaningfully fewer ads than” traditional TV channels and other streaming services. U.S. subscribers will be able to opt out of commercials for an additional charge of $2.99 a month, with pricing for other countries to come later.

The ads will launch in early 2024 in the U.S., the United Kingdom, Germany and Canada; as well as, later that year, Mexico, Australia and certain other European countries.

The change reflects a larger shift in the entertainment industry, which has grown gradually disenchanted with the model of online content popularized by Netflix: unlimited ad-free streaming for a fixed monthly rate.

In August, the Walt Disney Co.’s quarterly earnings report came alongside the announcement that the media conglomerate would be raising the price of ad-free Disney+ — the company’s premiere streaming platform — from $10.99 a month to $13.99 a month, although its ad-supported tier would stay at $7.99 a month.

Those changes came as the House of Mouse faced declining income from its linear networks and continued losses on streaming.

Netflix also raised the prices of U.S. streaming subscriptions in early 2022.

Earlier this year, HBO Max — now just Max — bumped the monthly cost of new subscriptions up by a dollar. Other platforms have made similar moves, as their parent companies try to narrow their losses on direct-to-consumer businesses.