YouTube ad nauseam

New unskippable 30-second ads signal a huge shift in online video advertising

It will soon be time to rest your trigger finger. The five-second "skip" button will shortly be disappearing from some YouTube videos, as the Google subsidiary has announced that it will soon be rolling out unskippable 30-second adverts.

According to Variety, YouTube CEO Neal Mohan explained this irritation is due to the "seismic shift" in how people are watching video on the platform - with big-screen, smart TV viewing on the rise.

"Viewers - especially younger viewers - no longer make a distinction between the kind of content they're watching," Mohan reportedly told advertisers at the company's annual Brandcast event. "When they turn on the TV, they want everything they love in one place from their favourite creators, to blockbuster movies, to football. And they can find it all on YouTube."

The new ad format will reportedly be initially rolled out to videos in the "YouTube Select" programme of the platform's highest quality and most carefully vetted creators, which includes Mr Beast and Casey Neistat.

It will also be joined by a new "Pause Experience" for YouTube on smart TVs, where instead of simply freezing the video in situ, the YouTube smart TV apps will soon display static banner advertising over the top, and will perhaps even include a QR code to scan with your phone.