Netflix wants to inspire new customers for the streaming service with an advertising-financed subscription at a bargain price.
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Does a cheap Netflix subscription come with ads?
©Netflix
After seeing its subscribers drop for the first time in a decade, Netflix is looking for new ways to attract potential subscribers. After Netflix had refused an advertising-financed subscription model at a reasonable price for years, Co-CEO Reed Hastings is now considering this possibility.
Netflix is ad-supported subscription ready
As Hastings confirmed in the current earnings announcement this week, Netflix is now
“quite ready to offer even lower prices with advertising”
. The ad-financed subscription could thus represent an additional option among the Netflix subscriptions. According to Hastings, if Netflix decides to go for a cheap subscription with ads, it could launch in the next year or two.
Big shift for the streaming service
However, Hastings also emphasized that the introduction of such a subscription model would mean a major change for Netflix. In the past is the streaming service
“against the complexity of advertising and for the simplicity of subscriptions”
been. Now the co-CEO admits that such a subscription for consumers
“a lot of sense”
who want a lower price and don’t mind advertising.
Live sports as another source of income
Netflix is now also open to the possibility of live sports events – which the streaming service had vehemently rejected in recent years.
“I’m not saying we’ll never do sport, but we need to find a way to make a big revenue stream and a big profit out of it.”
confirmed co-CEO Ted Sarandos to Deadline.
