Disney said viewers who subscribe to the ad-supported version of its Disney+ streaming service will see only a limited number of ads when it debuts later this year.
As The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday (May 17), Disney said viewers should see about four minutes of ads per hour on its programming.
The entertainment behemoth also said that it will not run any commercials during programming aimed at preschool children, and that preschoolers who use their own profiles to stream ad-supported shows still won’t see commercials.
See also: Disney+ Adding Ad-Supported Subscription Later This Year
“We’re never going to collect data on individual kids to target them,” said Rita Ferro, Disney’s president of ad sales and partnerships.
The Journal report noted that the idea of ads coming to Disney+ is enticing to the advertising industry, in part because streaming channels are one of the only places advertisers can reach younger viewers after their abandonment of traditional TV.
“If you want to reach 25- or 30-year-olds, you have to be in that space,” said David Campanelli, chief investment officer at ad-buying firm Horizon Media, referring to streaming services.
He told the Journal his company moved about a fifth of its television ad dollars to streaming services last year. By the end of this year, Campanelli said Horizon’s split between traditional and streaming ad spending will be 60/40.
Disney announced the ad-supported version of Disney+ earlier this year, and has said it plans to roll the service out on a global basis next year.
Read more: Disney Streaming Subscribers up 33% From Last Year
Last week, Disney released its Disney+ subscription numbers, reporting better-than-anticipated results for the recent quarter.
Disney reported 7.9 million new Disney+ subscribers, bringing its total at 137.7 million subscribers, up from 129.8 million from the previous quarter and up 33% from this time in 2021.
Disney CEO Bob Chapek said Disney’s goals were to sign up between 230 million and 260 million subscribers, with the business hitting profitability by September 2024.
He said both goals were “very achievable.” He added that the company hasn’t yet gotten into the swaths of possible new subscribers, pointing to the slate of various new TV and movie offerings, which he thought would be the main revenue driver.
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