Netflix Confirms Its Ad-Supported Plan Won't Offer All of the Content

Netflix was recently reported to be in talks with Hollywood Studios to renegotiating deals to put content on its cheaper advertising-supported plan. The online streaming platform has recently announced that it will launch the ad-supported subscription plans soon, which is said to come into function on the platform in early 2023. For the offering, the company recently announced their collaboration with Microsoft as sales and technology partner. Moreover, Netflix’s executives also confirmed that the upcoming advertising-supported plan won’t be offering all of the streaming content that is available on the platform as of now. However, it’s still not clear what all contents would be missing from the latest advertising-supported tier on Netflix.

During the company’s recent earnings call, Ted Sarandos, Chief Executive officer of Netflix said, stated, “The vast majority of what people watch on Netflix we can include in the ad-supported tier. There are some things that don’t, and we’re in conversation with the studios on. But if we launched the product today, the members of the ad tier will have a great experience. And we will clear some additional content, but certainly not all of it but don’t think it’s a material holdback to the business.”

Lask week, Netflix announced that it has selected Microsoft as technology and sales partner for its planned ad-supported subscription offering. Through this effort, the streaming giant looks forward to plug slowing subscriber growth by rolling out a cheaper plan.

Regarding details on the negotiation deals, Netflix executives didn’t mention the studios they are in talks with. However, The Wall Street Journal earlier reported that the company is trying to negotiate the programming deals with Warner Bros, Universal and Sony Pictures.

On the other hand, Netflix also shed almost 1 million subscribers during the spring amid tougher competition and soaring inflation that’s squeezing household budgets, heightening the urgency behind the video streaming service’s effort to launch a cheaper option with commercial interruptions.

The April-June contraction of 970,000 accounts, announced Tuesday as part of the Netflix’s second-quarter earnings report, is by far the largest quarterly subscriber loss in the company’s 25-year history.