Ads seem like a fair trade-off for watching a TV show for free after it's already aired. Especially considering Google has to foot the bill for bandwidth. As an avid fan of YT I sure hope Google makes enough money to justify keeping it running without alienating its viewers via ad-bloat in the process.

Does Hulu or MTVnetworks (daily show, colbert, etc) show ads in their clips?
I don't think I've ever seen one but my firewall blocks a lot that I never see.

I just tried, and Hulu does show ads.

The Daily Show's full episodes don't have any ads on page. And where commercial breaks would normally be there's usually just a brief intra-network commercial. Brief as in less than five seconds. Every business has to make money to survive in the long term. Why are there so many objections to ads if those ads are displayed in conjunction with something you want to watch both now and in the future?

BBC iplayer puts an advertisement at the beginning of the program, but other then that it plays right the way through.

Most online video I come across (surfline, ninemsn etc) employ the same tactic, which I think is more irritating then splicing ad's throughout the broadcast.

Yes, The Daily Show and Colbert Report have full episodes with occasional commercials, very well done, non-instrusive. If all TV was aired this way I would not hesitate at all to cancel my cable.

born I agree..... I am almost there already, a lot of the shows I like have full episodes on their website after the fact... some have full ads, some have a quick ad you watch at the beginning.

YouTube should have done this a long time ago. Every time they announced a new player I was surprised it didn't have ad spots support.

Much Music in Canada does a great job of serving ads for it's programs. You get a ten minute segment, when you are done you get an ad, if you watch the ad then next ten minute segment loads.

I love it, pause, play, rewind, my work in one window, my favorite show in another.

[edited by: Demaestro at 6:18 pm (utc) on Oct. 14, 2008]