Isn’t it great to binge on a great Netflix series without being bothered by commercials? Yeah, you’ll have to pay extra for that convenience in the future.
Or, you can pay less than you currently spend on your subscription, but you’ll have to endure the potentially insufferable interruptions.
Netflix has taken a bath financially this year. The former tech/Hollywood golden child of Wall Street is now being treated like the inappropriate drunk uncle of the family, with its stock price tanking and subscriptions falling, so co-CEOs Reed Hastings and Ted Sarandos had to put their two heads together and come up with a plan to fix things.
They came up with this: commercials.
It starts November 3 in the U.S. Netflix will charge $6.99 per month for the new advertising-supported tier. It’s called “Basic with ads,” You’ll enjoy four to five minutes of commercials each hour, and you won’t be able to download movies and TV series for those car and plane rides. And some films and TV series will be unavailable for a while with this service because of licensing restrictions.
The ads will run 15 and 30 seconds, and you’ll see them at the beginning of the content and during it.
Commercial-free content was the mantra for Netflix for years, but something had to be done after losing subscribers in the first two quarters of 2022.
The streamer is still king of the hill with 221 million subscribers worldwide, and they strategically set their price point at $6.99 to make it more affordable than Disney+, which charges a buck more for similar services. HBO Max offers an ad-supported option for $9.99 per month.
Hulu’s ad service is $7.99 monthly, while Paramount+ and Peacock are $4.99.
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