If you regularly watch videos on Facebook then prepare to see more adverts, because Facebook is now actively inserting ad breaks into the middle of videos. This applies to both on-demand videos and Facebook Live videos. In other words, there's no escaping these ads.

Facebook enjoys a huge userbase at this point, with at least 1.8 billion people within its grasp. That gives the social network the potential to make serious money, mainly from advertising. The problem is where to place these ads for maximum potential without annoying billions of people in the process... like on the Messenger homescreen, for example.

Annoying Ad Breaks Every Five Minutes

The company's latest attempt to squeeze advertising dollars out of your time and attention has arrived in the form of ad breaks in the middle of videos. This was rumored at the beginning of January, but has now been confirmed in a Facebook Media blog post titled, "Update on Video Monetization".

Facebook is currently testing ad breaks in the middle of on-demand videos with "a small number of partners". However, ad breaks in the middle of Facebook Live videos are now available to all Live creators who have more than 2,000 followers and have had more than 300 concurrent viewers during a recent broadcast.

Ad breaks will start appearing in on-demand videos after at least 20 seconds and must be two minutes apart. During Facebook Live videos, the broadcasters themselves will trigger ad breaks. They'll be able to take their first ad break after four minutes of broadcasting to 300 or more concurrent viewers, and then take another break every five minutes after that.

Improving the Quality of Facebook Videos

These ad breaks are obviously good for Facebook and good for content creators. However, they're a mixed bag for users. They will obviously annoy many of you. However, the ability to generate revenue should encourage more content creators to make videos for Facebook. Which is a really good thing if we want the quality of Facebook videos to improve in the longterm.

And, look on the bright side, at least YouTube is killing its annoying unskippable ads.

Do you regularly watch on-demand videos on Facebook? Or Facebook Live videos? If so, how do you feel about the prospect of sitting through ad breaks? Do you accept that this is a necessary evil to ensure everyone gets paid? Please let us know in the comments below!