Digital Disconnect: So, yes, I arrived late to the Phulera party. But better late than never, right? I finally sat down to binge the latest season of Panchayat — that rare gem of a show that still believes in subtlety, heart, and bite-sized 30-minute episodes that don’t feel like a hostage situation. It’s easily one of my comfort picks on OTT. And once again, Season 3 delivers: Vikas is hilarious, the TVF banter is on point, and even amid all the political tamasha, it still makes room for emotional gut-punches. (I don’t care what ‘experts’ on X think).
But you know what didn’t land? My viewing experience. Because Amazon Prime Video, in its infinite wisdom, decided that I hadn’t suffered enough. Enter: unskippable ads. And not one or two here and there. Two every single episode — 30 seconds each. Right in the middle of a heartfelt montage or a well-earned joke.
Welcome (Back) To TV, But Make It Prime
Starting June 17, Prime Video has officially pulled a fast one on its subscribers. You now get four to six minutes of ads per hour.
That’s right — the OTT platform that once wooed you with an ad-free promise now interrupts your paid content with trailers for movies you’ll never watch and shampoo ads that my wife would rather shave her head than buy.
Let this sink in: I pay Rs 1,499 a year to not see ads, and now I’m being asked to pay Rs 129/month (or Rs 699/month) more to stop seeing them. That’s extra money to remove something you never signed up for in the first place.
It’s like ordering a pizza and being charged a topping removal fee because the chef added pineapple without asking.
It Gets Worse…
And just when you think it couldn’t get worse, the app on my TV freezes. Yes, literally.
Each time an ad ends, Panchayat resumes with a frozen screen, while the audio gallops ahead. So now I have to exit to the home screen, reload the episode, and pray that it works this time. It’s less binge-watching, more bootcamp.
This isn’t just an inconvenience — it’s a tech company breaking the user experience and asking you to pay extra to fix what they broke.
Why The Ads? Why Now?
Short answer: money. Long answer: Amazon wants in on India’s growing ad-supported OTT game. With subscription numbers stalling and AVOD (advertising-based video on demand) exploding, it’s trying to capture the price-sensitive masses.
As per Ormax Media’s 2024 report, only 27.5 per cent of India’s OTT audience pays for subscriptions. The remaining 72.5 per cent — a staggering 396.6 million users — stick to free content, mostly on YouTube and Instagram.
So while SVOD audiences are shrinking, AVOD is booming — and Prime Video is jumping on the bandwagon with shiny new ad formats, CTV playbooks, and a convenient excuse: ‘It helps us invest more in content.’
Sure, but at what cost? Disrupting viewer experience, asking for more money, and killing the very appeal of OTT — a clean, uninterrupted watch — in the process?
OTT’s Identity Crisis: Is This The End Of Binge Culture?
With Prime Video joining JioCinema, Hotstar, SonyLIV, and Zee5 in the YouTube-without-Premium club, this might just be the death of the OTT we once loved. What’s next — two ads before every punchline? Tiered access to cliffhangers? Pause to Pay?
Even Netflix, the OG OTT platform, introduced an ad-supported subscription plan in 2022, but that was mainly intended for tight-pursed users who don’t want to pay the standard monthly fee.
Prime can dress it up however it likes — ‘content sustainability,’ ‘market innovation,’ ‘viewer choice’ — but to the loyal subscriber, it feels like betrayal. We didn’t ask for more ads. We asked for better shows.
Meanwhile, in Phulera, Pradhan ji might have lost the election. How would I know? I am still reloading episode 4 for the nth time.
Digital Disconnect is an ABP Live-exclusive column, where we explore the many admirable advancements the world of tech is seeing each day, and how they lead to a certain disconnect among users. Is the modern world an easier place to live in, thanks to tech? Definitely. Does that mean we don’t long for things to go back to the good-ol’ days? Well, look out for our next column to find out.
