I tested the ad load on 7 streaming services including Netflix, Prime Video and HBO Max — here’s the worst offender
These ad-supported memberships tend to be less expensive than the higher tiers and in some cases offer fewer features, like a lack of live sports or no downloads.With that in mind, how often are advertisements interrupting your movies or TV shows? For movies, we watched films that were 2 hours long. For shows, we tried to find two episodes of about 60 minutes each, within five minutes.We charted how many advertising breaks were inserted into the media, including starting ads.
- ▪These ad-supported memberships tend to be less expensive than the higher tiers and in some cases offer fewer features, like a lack of live sports or no downloads.With that in mind, how often are advertisements interrupting your movies or TV
- ▪For movies, we watched films that were 2 hours long.
- ▪For shows, we tried to find two episodes of about 60 minutes each, within five minutes.We charted how many advertising breaks were inserted into the media, including starting ads.
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| Original publisher | Tom's Guide |
| Canonical URL | https://www.tomsguide.com/entertainment/streaming/i-timed-the-ad-load-on-7-streaming-services-including-netflix-prime-video-and-hbo-max-heres-the-worst-offender |
| Publication time | Tue, 28 Jul 2026 04:01:00 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-28T04:22:53.054Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-28T04:23:01.401Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | k-2XI1ZmXVrj · 1 stories |
| Cluster logic | Grouped by semantic title/content similarity across sources within a rolling window. Same-publisher template collisions are excluded from coverage comparison. |
| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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Entertainment Streaming I tested the ad load on 7 streaming services including Netflix, Prime Video and HBO Max — here’s the worst offender Features By Scott Younker Published 28 July 2026 Tracking everything from the number of ads to how many times they broke in When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Alamy/Shutterstock/Tom's Guide) Copy link Facebook X Reddit Email Share this article 0 Join the conversation Follow us Add us as a preferred source on Google Newsletter Subscribe to our newsletter Over the past couple of years, between price hikes and shifting priorities, even the best streaming services have become more akin to cable TV with prices to match, especially at the higher "ad-free" tiers.Almost every…
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