San Jose government videos are ditching ads. Advertising experts say they’re not a big deal

People tuning in to a San Jose City Council meeting on YouTube might be interrupted by advertisements — something city officials said goes against the video platform’s own guidelines.

Ads for website builders, grocery delivery, hotel booking sites and other products and services are dotted into the city’s public video recordings uploaded to the platform, including council, commission and committee meetings. But YouTube’s “standard practices” are to not place ads on government meeting videos, city officials said.