Twitch is removing ad-free viewing for Twitch Prime subscribers on October 15, 2018 . This means that your viewers are about to see a LOT more ads. How can you keep them from rioting?
As you’ve probably heard by now, Twitch is changing its rules for people who subscribe to streams through Twitch Prime.
In the announcement email sent out on August 20th by Twitch, they said:
As we have continued to add value to Twitch Prime, we have also re-evaluated some of the existing Twitch Prime benefits. As a result, universal ad-free viewing will no longer be part of Twitch Prime for new members, starting on September 14.
Twitch
Members with monthly subscriptions will continue to get ad-free viewing until October 15. If you already have an annual subscription, or if you upgrade to an annual subscription before September 14, you will continue with ad-free viewing until your next renewal date.
Anyone who has ever had to sit through Twitch Ads knows just how much your subs will hate this change. Twitch even knows this won’t be well-received, it’s why they try to frame this as a positive by saying:
Advertising is an important source of support for the creators who make Twitch possible. This change will strengthen and expand that advertising opportunity for creators
Twitch
I haven’t met any streamers that believe that this is anything more than a cash grab on the part of Twitch and Amazon to push their new Twitch Turbo option.
In fact, most creators and streamers are worried about losing their Twitch Prime subs and even their livelihoods, fearing that if people have to sit through ads, they might just switch off the stream all together.
Obviously, the sentiment in the streaming world is that this is a no good, very bad idea, but who knows! Maybe Twitch’s marketing spin about trying to make more money for creators will turn out to be true.
In the meantime, there IS something you can do if you don’t want to piss off your Twitch Prime subscribers with ads.
The Solution For Partners & Affiliates
Twitch partners have a secret weapon to make their viewers as happy as possible.
If you’ve worked hard and become a partner, then you’re in luck, you have an option inside your Partner Settings that will keep ALL of your subscribers from seeing ads, including your Twitch Prime subs.
All you have to do is go to Partner Settings>Monetization select the checkbox next to Ad-Free Viewing for Subscribers, then click Save Changes.
That’s it! If you do that now, then your Twitch Prime Subscribers will never see an ad!
1 Comment
This article is partly wrong. This month my Amazon prime renewed which means I lost ad-free viewing across the site. I threw a streamer that I enjoy my Twitch Prime sub (I do a regular sub to a couple streams already) and it does take care of the annoying ads when you load his stream. He is not a partner so he doesn’t have that setting. The setting that you show is for ads partners can run, which is something that affiliates can’t do. You don’t have global ad free viewing anymore but you still do have ad free viewing for any channel that you use your prime channel subscription on. Yes, I am a streamer myself and I am frequently on Twitch throughout the day dropping into streams.