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Comment by amelius | Hacker News Reader

Why can't they remove the embedded ads with AI?

Sheesh ... they're a big company. This should be easy.

If you're talking about sports stuff:

1. Now you just have a blank screen. Sure some people might like that but others will think there's an issue with the stream.

2. They're purchasing the rights to show the sports stuff, not actually producing it themselves and removing the ads would make the cost of the rights astronomical.

Even when expensive linear TV packages were the norm, they still came with ads. With live TV paying has never negated the need for ads.

1. There doesn’t have to be a blank screen. Major League Baseball’s streaming service, for example, plays highlights or a placeholder video saying a commercial break is in progress.

2. What? They own ESPN which is producing the content, right?

Baseball literally has an ad-free tier for its live streaming service. I’m sure it’s not the only live service that does.

None of your points seem well considered. Why run interference for these companies?

I'm not familiar with MLB, only with NBA. But even their "ad-free" really isn't - there are still ad banners inside the arenas, on the court itself, and on the jerseys, the announcers often read ads ("this segment was brought to you by ..."), and if there is arena feed during the regular breaks, the in-arena events like a half-court shot are often sponsored as well. Plus there's standard service ads that announce next games.

Unless MLB blurs/bleeps all of these, it's not really ad-free.

1. I hate the MLB one the most. I'm international so maybe it works differently but each season they come up with these horrible clips that they play on repeat. Sometimes it's a little short history snippet or this season some stuff about food. Problem is they have minimal content and so many breaks that by day two of the season they're tortuous. I'd rather have ads.

2. It probably depends on what sports we're talking about. Again, I'm thinking internationally where they've started showing La Liga this season.

> 1. Now you just have a blank screen. Sure some people might like that but others will think there's an issue with the stream.

NASCAR has a separate feed for international broadcasts without their ads. During the ad break they'll just show an overhead camera or maybe an in car camera.

Yeah I'm familiar with that. I guess it all depends on the sport and country. Ads during the sport is quite unusual in the UK for example so we get that NASCAR feed where the camera continues with no commentary during US ad breaks. We also have a cool setup for Indycar where a local UK commentator jumps in to talk over the feed while the US goes to a break. For MLB (on their own league pass product) we get a blank screen or non-ad montage thing in between innings (although as I mentioned in another comment that's its own kind of hell).

They could. They won't, because those ads are probably - if you excuse a little Claudish - the load-bearing part of the contract that allows them to show the content in the first place.

(More cynical take: the ads are the whole point, the content itself is just a vector to get those ads in front of people, and prime them to be receptive.)

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