Advertisements in Livestream Channels

[HolyNamesWebmaster]

Matt, can you confirm that the ads run during live broadcasts in addition to during the auto pilot mode? Does the live broadcast buffer while the ad runs and pick up where it left off, or does it just get interrupted so viewers miss part of the action?

Is there anyway to control the kind of ads that run? You can imagine some might be inappropriate to run depending on the content of the broadcast (Ghost Hunters interrupting a university's Inauguration, for example).

thank you!

Originally Posted by mbaron

alesacchi,

Ads run on all free channels at 15 minute intervals. Could you please clarify what you're asking?

Thanks,
Matt
Livestream Producer Support

[mbaron]

To answer your first questions, ads run during both live broadcasts and also while your player is on auto-pilot. Videos do not stall while commercials are played though.

Our commercials are loosely tried to the channel settings, so they are contextually relevant.

[ChipJiggins]

The Ad-spam is absolutely ridiculous.

I'm fine with with ads. I don't mind the bottom bar ads, and I wouldn't even mind the video add every 14 minutes -- IF IT WORKED LIKE THAT.

Instead, the volume of ads are causing the stream to lag, which in turn causes me to watch a video ad every 30 SECONDS!!!

The streams on this site are completely unwatchable.

My connection is fine. I can view streams on Justin.tv and Ustream.com without issue.

Send out an e-mail if you get this issue fixed, because I won't waste another minute on this site until then.

[chattyhorseman]

Just got redirected by an ad I didn't click on in the middle of a broadcast, to a website that tried to put spyware on my computer. Thanks livestream, you have lost a would be customer due to your rediculous ads.

[benhomer]

We don't have any ads on our network that should behave this way and I have not heard any other similar reports from other viewers but if you experienced this and believe it was related to a specific ad unit please provide some more details on the channel and what the ad was so we can investigate further.

-Ben
Livestream Support

[cseeman]

The viewer can have some control during that 15 minute period by choosing to play a commercial immediately rather than waiting until the end of the 15 minute period. So if they're at a spot where they feel it's OK to miss a few moments for a spot, they can trigger it at that point and get a longer time to the next commercial.

[TheChrisD]

Originally Posted by mbaron

Videos do not stall while commercials are played though.

Originally Posted by cseeman

So if they're at a spot where they feel it's OK to miss a few moments for a spot.

This is one of the inherent problems though. Sometimes, on some streams, there could be action for more than 15 minutes at a time, causing most viewers to miss some, especially as the stream doesn't wait up for them in the meantime.

Also, the broadcaster has no ability to force an ad themselves when they know that there will be a brief lull so that everyone watching goes ad-free for the next 15 minutes of content, and no-one will miss anything.

There is a fine line between ads complementing the viewing experience, and having them take over and completely dominate the experience, which they are unfortunately doing right now.

[cseeman]

One might consider announcing a break every 15 minutes for the commercial to run. Of course the timing different for each viewer (depends on when the "tuned" in) but you can tell them to hit the play ad now link. Yes, I know it's awkward because you have to hope the viewers understand what you're telling them to do.

Alas without advertising there's no way to have a free service and the advertisers do determine the value of advertising. Translation, the advertisers have to be happy to keep the the ad buys coming in.

[hilldalecoc]

During one of our church broadcasts a condom ad appeared and naturally is in the archive. Is there a way to keep this type of ad from appearing in the channel setup?

[jasonlive]

Originally Posted by hilldalecoc

During one of our church broadcasts a condom ad appeared and naturally is in the archive. Is there a way to keep this type of ad from appearing in the channel setup?

Can you please elaborate, hilldalecoc? Ads are never "archived" with your content, however if you're watching your video on the channel page, the same ad may simply be playing again. If you download the video from your Livestream Studio and play it on your computer, you will see that ads are not integrated into your content.

Best,
Jason