I’ve covered this so many times on this blog, I sound like a broken disk player.  But the logic is simple:

- when a pre-roll starts, users tend to turn away and look for their headphones or anything else but watch the video, or simply close the video altogether.

- yet because with video, people do not scroll down, the real estate next to a video player is much higher.  I expect the value - and cost - of a static display ad in the companion ad to rise at the expense of pre-roll video ads, and in fact, I also expect the value - and cost - of a user initiated video ad in the companion real estate to eventually be greater than a pre-roll.

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