The advertising-supported version of Netflix starts from $6.99 a month in Australia starting November.
Greg Peters, COO of Netflix: "We’re excited to launch Basic with Ads – Netflix’s lower priced ad-supported plan – in November."
An average of four to five minutes of ads per hour. A limited number of movies and TV shows won't be available due to licensing restrictions.
The monthly subscription charge is $4 a month lower than Netflix's basic plan of $10.99.
Netflix overturned a long held policy of being advertising free after subscription growth started to fall.
Many analysts believe Netflix can achieve better profitability by adding advertising revenue to its subscription fees.
The new Basic with Ads service can be cancelled or change at any time. It will be available in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US.
Current, advertising free plans will not be changed.
Peters: "Basic with Ads also represents an exciting opportunity for advertisers – the chance to reach a diverse audience, including younger viewers who increasingly don’t watch linear TV, in a premium environment with a seamless, high-resolution ad experience."
Ad format: At launch, ads will be 15 or 30 seconds in length and will play before and during shows and movies.
Advertiser controls: "To help advertisers reach the right audience and ensure our ads are more relevant for consumers, we’ll offer broad targeting capabilities by country and genre (e.g. action, drama, romance, sci-fi). Advertisers will also be able to prevent their ads from appearing on content that might be inconsistent with their brand (e.g. sex, nudity or graphic violence)."
Verification tools: Netflix has partnerships with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to verify the viewability and traffic validity starting in January, 2023.
Peters: Basic with Ads will launch just six months after we first announced the option of a lower priced ads tier. None of this would have been possible without our team’s hard work or Microsoft’s extraordinary partnership.
"The switch from linear is happening at an ever increasing speed, with streaming now surpassing free-to-air and pay TV in the US.
"We’re confident that with Netflix starting at $6.99 per month, we now have a price and plan for every fan. While it’s still very early days, we’re pleased with the interest from both consumers and the advertising community and couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead. As we learn from and improve the experience, we expect to launch in more countries over time.
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