Netflix has finally announced an ad-supported subscription tier called “Basic with Ads”. The tier goes live starting November 1 in a dozen countries and starts at $6.99. The company also announced that they’d be partnering with Nielsen as an audience measurement partner, a surprising decision considering the latter’s criticism over inaccurate streaming data.
The plan will serve an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour and will feature video quality up to 720p. Additionally, some titles won’t be available on this plan due to licensing restrictions, which Netflix is working on at the time of the announcement. Users on the ad-supported plan can’t download anything either.
The rollout will start on November 1, with Canadian and Mexican subscribers being the first ones to get their hands on the new cheaper subscription offer, followed by Australia, Brazil, the UK, the US, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and Korea on November 3. Last but not least Spanish viewers will get the option on November 10.
There’s no word on when the rollout will come to other markets, but the announcement does come before Netflix’s previous early 2023 launch date. This also puts Netlfix a month ahead of Disney+, which is planning to announce its own ad-supported plan on December 8 at $7.99 per month, in addition to increasing the price of its ad-free plans.
This seems like Netflix’s attempt to undercut Disney+ not only in terms of price and bringing the tier sooner to viewers but also in the fact that Netflix’s ad-supported plans aren’t getting hiked. The streaming giant’s monopoly is being threatened as other streaming services, most notably Disney+ and Amazon’s Prime Video, gain popularity thanks to exclusive content and more inclusive pricing tiers.
As for when the rest of the world will get this cheaper subscription tier, as mentioned before, the company hasn’t announced any plans or dates yet. However, it did mention that as the platform learns from and improves the experience, they “expect to launch in more countries over time”.
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