The last group of Tablo customers who have kept the Automatic Commercial Skip feature with their grandfathered Premium plans are being notified that they will be losing the feature on or before December 31, 2026.
Here’s the message that grandfathered users are receiving.
Tablo is discontinuing the Automatic Commercial Skip feature for all grandfathered Tablo users on December 31, 2026.
Why is This Happening?
Premium Service subscriptions, which enable this feature, have not been offered to new users since 2022.The infrastructure that powers commercial skip processing is also no longer being maintained.
What This Means for You
Premium Service subscribers can continue using Automatic Commercial Skip through legacy Tablo apps until their subscription lapses or December 31, 2026, whichever comes first.
What Was Automatic Commercial Skip?
Tablo launched the Automatic Commercial Skip feature in 2019, starting with beta testing. With the feature, users could use their Tablo OTA DVR to watch completed recordings without ads. Tablo made this happen by uploading a portion of completed recordings to the Tablo Commercial Skip Server for processing, then using machine learning to look at the data and mark the sections with ads. After being processed, the content was delivered back to the user and during playback, Tablo would automatically jump past the marked sections to skip over commercials.
In 2022, the feature was discontinued for newly activated Tablo devices. In a blog post about sunsetting the feature, Tablo explained
The engineering, support and cloud computing resources required for ACS have been significant and the uptake on the Premium Service subscription has not been as strong as we’d anticipated.
For this reason, we made the difficult decision to sunset this feature to focus on other higher demand features.
We believe this is the best way for us to continue to offer the great Tablo experience customers expect, on a wide variety of platforms, while keeping subscription costs low.
However, legacy app users were still able to use Automatic Commercial Skip, with a note saying “As long as a current Tablo customer’s Premium Service subscription remains active, they can continue enjoying Automatic Commercial Skip on completed recordings for the foreseeable future.”
What This Means for Premium Subscribers
Now, the time has come for those grandfathered users to lose the feature as well. With that update, legacy Tablo users should know that automatic renewals of Premium Service subscription plans will end on November 30th.
If you have a yearly premium service subscription, you can cancel before November 30. If you don’t cancel before the end date, Tablo will issue pro-rated refunds for any unused portion of your subscription extending beyond December 31, 2026.
If you’re a monthly subscriber and don’t cancel before November 30, Tablo will not issue pro-rated refunds for unused time. Your service will end on your next scheduled billing date.
Canceling a premium subscription will not affect TV Guide Data Service subscriptions. You can choose to continue your TV Guide Data Service subscription when you cancel your premium subscription.
What This Means for Content
When the feature is discontinued, any content you’ve saved that has been processed with automatic skips enabled will no longer automatically skip commercials. New recordings will not be uploaded for processing.
That said, Tablo users will still be able to skip commercials. You’ll be able to fast forward and rewind through recorded content, including fast forwarding through ads.
