Netflix's ad-supported plan could be available for $7 a month
Last month, Netflix revealed that it has partnered with Microsoft to offer a lower priced subscription, with ads. A report has emerged which claims that the streaming service's ad-supported plan could start as low as $7 per month.
Image courtesy: Netflix
Netflix had claimed that it lost over a million users since the beginning of the year. It had partially blamed password sharing among users as one of the reasons why its numbers were dropping. The service plans to crackdown on this by offering additional plans at a higher price, to allow users to share their accounts with their friends and family. The new subscriptions, called Netflix Homes, are currently available for users in Argentina, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and the Dominican Republic.
Netflix's ad-supported plan
A report by Bloomberg reveals that Netflix's ad-supported plan will be priced at $7 to $9. In comparison, Netflix's Standard plan costs $15.49 per month, while the Basic one is priced at $9.99.
There has been a rise in the number of streaming services that have introduced ad-supported subscriptions, and it comes as no surprise that Netflix wants to cash in on this.
Here are the prices of ad-supported plans from other streaming services
- Discovery+ - $4.99
- Paramount+ - $4.99
- Peacock Premium -$4.99
- Disney+ with Ads - $7.99
- Hulu - $6.99
- HBO Max - $10
Netflix with ads for $7 a month doesn't sound like a bad deal. The company plans to include four minutes of commercials per hour of playback. That's quite less than what cable networks do, they air ads for 10-20 minutes during shows and movies. The advertisements in Netflix will be shown before and during some shows, but not at the end. This sounds similar to what Paramount+ does, it has promotional interruptions for some shows, where it displays commercials for about 10-15 seconds before resuming the show or movie.
The ads will not be personalized, i.e., Netflix will show the same ads to most people instead of tailored ads. These ads are said to be non-repetitive as well. Kids' shows and Netflix Originals movies won't have ads, though this could change in the future. The service's own TV shows, however, will contain ads. The company is also in talks with its partners, such as Sony, Universal, Warner Bros. and Paramount, to reach an agreement for adding commercials to their old shows and movies.
New TV shows on the other hand will not include advertisements. What this means is that users who subscribe to the ad-supported plan may not have access to the latest shows. This maybe a way for companies to entice users to pay for a higher-priced plan. The ad-supported plan may not support offline viewing, which could be a major disadvantage for people who may prefer to download shows and movies on their devices.
The report states that Netflix's ad-supported plan may be announced in Q3 2022, in half a dozen regions. This move could help the company attract more users, who may otherwise find its plan prices to be a little out of their budget. Media consultancy, Ampere Analytics, estimates that the new subscription plan could help generate $8.5 billion a year for Netflix globally by the year 2027.
What do you think about ad-supported plans for streaming services?
I least for myself, I don’t want to endure ads to save a few bucks. If the content isn’t worth the no ads subscription, then I will drop it. Netflix invested far too much in exclusive in- house productions that never really paid off and they increased subscription costs to justify it.
Until they plan to implement this crap for real countries, this news is irrelevant.
1. Access to media is not a right.
2. You are not required to watch it.
3. You can still receive TV broadcasts with an antennae for free.
4. The orignal reason for paying for cable was not the content, it was getting a perfect picture all the time, something we didn’t get with antenna.
5. TV has always had ads no matter the method you receive the signal. When cable first came out you could watch some programming on some channels without ads but, not all of it.
I know this first hand as my job at the time the first cable lines where being hung on telephone poles across the US was inserting the local ads over the national ones into your cable TV programs.
Sharing your Netflix password has always been a violation of thier TOS. They’ve just never enforced it until now because it was in their best interest not to, financially.
Now that they have let you get used to doing it, illegally, they are going to charge you to keep doing it, legally.
https://about.netflix.com/en/news/paying-to-share-netflix-outside-your-household
PS (In the USA at least, I don’t know about other countries)
This is the best comment.
So, basically, it’s commercial TV once again, but through your broadband. Still – f*** them for their limitless, bottomless greed.
Imagine paying to watch old movies and tv shows and really garbage Netflix production crap and still get ads.
I mean, it is already stupid to slave yourself to tv show or movie.
Easier, find a website that offers the movies for free, watch it and be happy, even if it is not the best quality you are not paying anything, for quality there is always Torrents, but they are easier to detect by ISP.
I mean, I am sure some people will say piracy is wrong but it is what it is, if you are going to get brainwashed at least do it for free, and then maybe rich movie stars and studios and companies will cease to exist someday freeing new generations from Gov agencies that will do anything to manipulate you from movies, music and videogames. The dumber down you are, the best.
I heard Netflix will also start charging more to share passwords and all that, I really hope my sister stops supporting this garbage company.
It’s funny that all these streaming services were originally advertised as “watch whatever you want, whenever you want, and without ads (unlike TV)”.
But history has evolved in a spiral, and now we’re back where we started: you can’t watch whatever you want anymore – each service now pulls the “blanket” over itself (leaving its movies and shows only to itself), “whenever you want it” – also impossible – now you can only watch when they open access ( https://www.timeout.com/newyork/news/this-viral-tiktok-shows-new-yorkers-all-watching-house-of-the-dragon-082222 ). And the last argument – “no ads” is also no longer relevant.
We’re back to _television_ simply working over the Internet.
Pay to receive ads. That’s a novel idea. I don’t have a Netflix subscription, but the thought of getting bombarded by ads doesn’t ecourage me to sign up to one.
As you’ve said before: pay for a service’s ad-free offering for a month, watch everything you want to watch, and then cancel till there’s something else you want to watch. I’ve never paid for the “privilege” of watching ads; don’t ever plan to.
This is a major scam. Anyone who falls into this trap has my sympathy. Whenever Microsoft is involved, crap results.