We Spent a Day Watching HBO Max With Ads—and Here’s What We Found

Including a much lighter advertising load than expected

When HBO Max executives said that the service’s ad-supported tier HBO Max With Ads—which debuted Wednesday—was going to include the lightest ad load in streaming video, they really weren’t kidding.

Subscribers watching HBO Max original series like The Flight Attendant on Wednesday evening only saw about 18 seconds of advertising space over the course of one 41-minute episode, thanks to the company’s “brand block” ad format in which Volkswagen granted an ad-free viewing experience, aside from a six-second message during three blink-and-you-missed-them ad pods.

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