topic Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads? in What's On

Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

scottish_guy — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 17:50:48 GMT

While watching the Snooker Shoot-Out the last few days, I have noticed the previously "ad-free" feeds (basically the linear channel but without the ad breaks at the defined points) are now being loaded with ads. These are pathetically easy to skip (close and reopen the stream in question), but initially I had no idea why the ads were being displayed. If I use the snooker as an example, preivous tournaments this season have not had any ads on these ad-free feeds.

It seems that Discovery+ has sneakily updated all of the subscriptions without notifying anyone at all that the previous "ad-free" sports coverage will now have ads on them. The subscription name has updated from "Discovery+ Sports and Entertainments" to this confusing mess of "d+ MVPD premium ad-lite + sport (Monthly)"

The question is, were Sky informed that the plans would be updated to include ads? As I have no emails from either Discovery+ directly or Sky to inform me that my subscription would be changed materially in this way. £31/month for linear channels -- which often show football and pushes every other sport off to Discovery+ or non-existent Red Button feeds -- and Discovery+ showing ads devalues the subscription for me (I bought TNT solely because of them closing down Eurosport channels in Feb 2025).

The material unannounced change of the subscription will make me consider cancelling TNT Sports through Sky once this snooker season comes to a close in April. Paying 2.5x more than a YouTube Premium subscription for a worsening experience is not worth it.

Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

xenon81 — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 18:44:12 GMT

Discovery+ has included ads in all its UK packages since February 2022. Since then there has been no ad-free package available, even for Sport.

https://support.discoveryplus.com/gb/Answer/Detail/000004113

Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

scottish_guy — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 18:54:32 GMT

@xenon81 wrote:
Discovery+ has included ads in all its UK packages since February 2022. Since then there has been no ad-free package available, even for Sport.

https://support.discoveryplus.com/gb/Answer/Detail/000004113

Then please explain why I've been using Discovery+ for the past 3 years and have NEVER had any ads on the Discovery+ sport feeds, under its previous guise of Eurosport and even when it moved to TNT? I have loaded up hundreds and hundreds of ad-free snooker feeds on Discovery+, including the 2024 Summer Olympics, and at no point were these feeds injected with ads at ad-breaks.

Quoting an article is all good and well, but it quite literally doesn't match my experience whatsoever, and its never been the experience of literally anyone else I've asked in the snooker community for the past 3 years of people who have been using Discovery+.

Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

TimmyBGood — Sat, 13 Dec 2025 22:03:13 GMT

@scottish_guy

So they've started selling advertising space in that particular content now. The point is for several years it's been possible, whether or not it actually happened in what you've been watching.

https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/discovery-plus-adds-adverts-sports-tier/

Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

MarkGoldsmith — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 10:15:28 GMT

@TimmyBGood wrote:
@scottish_guy

So they've started selling advertising space in that particular content now. The point is for several years it's been possible, whether or not it actually happened in what you've been watching.

https://www.cordbusters.co.uk/discovery-plus-adds-adverts-sports-tier/

And WDB could certainly do with the extra money that would come in from these additional ads they are now selling.

Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

nolte — Sun, 14 Dec 2025 12:57:45 GMT

Just out of curiosity, on the adbreaks in snooker, do they take it at breaks in the action or is it during the action?

Re: Discovery+ subscription has changed to include ads?

scottish_guy — Tue, 16 Dec 2025 20:22:01 GMT

@nolte wrote:
Just out of curiosity, on the adbreaks in snooker, do they take it at breaks in the action or is it during the action?

Hi @nolte the ad breaks on the supposedly "ad-free" feeds are placed in the same places as the linear channel ad breaks: basically at the end of frames and matches. It makes the feeds offered online with just the TNT Sports (or Eurosport) logo on them -- rather than say TNT Sports 1 LIVE -- completely and utterly pointless as they are not offering anything different to the existing linear channel feed.

This is why those Discovery+ feeds were good: the ad breaks for the linear channel was where the commentators would either (in years gone by) hand back to the studio for the pundit on duty to analyse the frame, drop in to the other tables (Tables 2-4) or play a pre-prepared VT.

However in the last season (2024-25) and the on-going season, all of this stuff that I mentione has now been ceased, so this is probably more of the reason why they're now loading ads onto the previously ad-free feeds, as there's nothing happening in the ad break that was only for Discovery+ users. When you close and reopen these streams, all you get is a locked-off camera shot with silence from the commentators.