• The top streamers have made low ad loads a selling point in the battle for advertisers and viewers.
• But in the past year, ad loads have crept up on almost all the top services, per MediaRadar.
• The ads are lucrative for the streamers but continued increases could risk turning off viewers and advertisers.

Now that streaming companies have fallen in love with ads, viewers can expect to see a lot more of them.  

With the continued shift toward streaming, the top streamers have made low ad loads a key selling point in the battle for advertisers and subscribers. But almost all the major ones have increased their number of ads per hour in the past year, according to data shared with Insider by ad information provider MediaRadar. 

Discovery+ and Hulu saw the biggest increases. Discovery+'s ad load grew 69%, to about 5 minutes per hour, while Hulu's jumped 38%, to 7.3 minutes per hour. 

MediaRadar shared numbers for standard commercial spots, which are the most common form of ads on streaming services.

NBCUniversal-owned Peacock's ad load increased about 15%, to 4.5 minutes. 

Disney+ Basic and Netflix's Basic with Ads are also increasing their ad loads — which is to be expected, as they're still ramping up. Disney's ad load increased 18% since its December launch, to 5.3 minutes per hour. Netflix, which said it would cap ads at around 4 minutes per hour on Basic with Ads, had just under 3.3 minutes of ads per hour in Q1, which is up about 10% since its November launch.

An exception to the trend was Warner Bros. Discovery's HBO Max — which transitions to Max on May 23 — whose ad load was the lowest at 1.6 minutes per hour, a decline from 2.6 minutes a year ago. WBD pledged at its TV upfront presentation May 17 to continue carrying "one of the industry's lightest ad loads" of 4 minutes per hour on Max, its mega-streamer that'll combine content from HBO Max and Discovery+.

On average, the biggest AVODs run 6.1 minutes of ads per hour, according to MediaRadar.

It makes sense for companies like Disney, WBD, and Netflix to lean into advertising. The revenue they make from ads more than makes up for the reduced price that the consumer is paying. (Hulu, one of the earliest movers in streaming, long boasted the highest average revenue per user.) That's why prices of ad-free tiers have gone up, pushing budget-conscious consumers toward the cheaper versions with ads.

It's a balancing act for the streamers to squeeze as much ad revenue out of the apps without making viewers inured to or turned off by them, especially if they feel like they're seeing the same ad repeatedly.

Peter Blacker, EVP Streaming & Data Products at NBCU, said Peacock's focus has been on making its ads more relevant and entertaining rather than just expanding the ad load. The streamer announced new units at its IAB NewFront presentation May 2 that are customized to viewers and shoppable, among other things.

"We want to make sure everyone feels the ad experience is additive and pleasurable," he said. The other companies mentioned in this article didn't comment or didn't respond to requests for comment.

Right now, advertisers are mainly concerned about reaching a big enough audience on streamers, which is why advertisers aren't abandoning traditional TV, said Todd Krizelman, CEO and founder of MediaRadar. "I hear in the past six months, 'We still favor linear programming because the audience is significant.'"

Over time, increased ad loads could become a problem for advertisers, though. They pay significantly more for commercials in streaming (as much as six times more than linear TV, by one estimate). They can also see if their ads are losing effectiveness, using third-party companies.

"One of the reasons we pay more in the streaming space is lack of clutter," said David Campanelli, chief investment officer at Horizon Media. "But with all the problems in the streaming space, I'm not surprised they're adding more commercials over time. It's a repeat of what we went through with cable. Part of what turns people off in cable is how long the ad loads are. There'll be a point where it stops working for viewers." 

And for advertisers, too.

Disclosure: Mathias Döpfner, CEO of Business Insider's parent company, Axel Springer, is a Netflix board member.

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