Pause Advertising

What are Pause Ads

Pause Ads display brand messages during natural breaks in playback. When a viewer pauses live or on-demand content, an ad appears on-screen after a brief delay. This format provides a high-visibility, static canvas that integrates naturally with the viewing experience. Pause Ads are effective for driving awareness, shoppability, and branded interactions.

Key Characteristics

• Trigger: The viewer pauses live or on-demand content.
• Delay: Configurable — from instant display (with pre-fetching) to any custom duration. A 3–5 second delay is common to filter out accidental pauses.
• Display: A static brand creative fills the screen or appears in a sidebar overlay.
• Resume: Resuming playback automatically dismisses the ad.

Configure ads to appear when the user pauses video. Set up the SDK as described in the tvOS Integration Guide first.

// Call these methods only in response to the Play/Pause button.
func handlePlayingState() {
  StreamLayer.stopADBreak()
}

func handlePausedState() {
	StreamLayer.startADBreak()
}

Delay pause ads

Add a delay before displaying pause ads to filter out brief or accidental pauses. The delay is fully configurable — common values range from instant (0 seconds, using pre-fetched ads) to 3–5 seconds. If playback does not resume within the delay window, the SDK treats the pause as intentional and starts an ad break. The example below uses a 5-second delay, but you can adjust the value to match your requirements.

Use a DispatchWorkItem to defer the ad break and cancel it when playback resumes.

private var adBreakWorkItem: DispatchWorkItem?

func handlePlayingState() {
  StreamLayer.stopADBreak()
	adBreakWorkItem?.cancel()
  adBreakWorkItem = nil
}

func handlePausedState() {
	let adBreakWorkItem = DispatchWorkItem { [weak self] in
		guard self?.adBreakWorkItem?.isCancelled == false else { return }
		StreamLayer.startADBreak()
	}
 	DispatchQueue.main.asyncAfter(deadline: .now() + 5, execute: adBreakWorkItem)
	self.adBreakWorkItem = adBreakWorkItem
}

Related

• Custom Paused Ads – Fullscreen and transparent pause ads with VAST tags and resume button configuration
• tvOS Integration Guide – SDK installation and initialization for tvOS
• Architecture Overview – High-level overview of the StreamLayer platform