Netflix Considering $7 to $9 Price for Upcoming Ad-Supported Tier
Ah, nostalgia! In order to appeal to Generation X, who used to have to sit through long, tedious minutes of dish soap commercials and fast food jingles, Netflix is considering adding four minutes of advertising to every hour of programming.
OK, so that’s not actually why they are proposing this. The real reason is because they would be able to offer subscribers a new ad-supported subscription tier at between $7 and $9 a month. That’s about half of what Netflix’s most popular subscription plan costs ($15.49 per month with no ads). According to Bloomberg, the goal for the discounted tier is to attract subscribers who are willing to watch some ads in exchange for a lower monthly Netflix bill.
This may work for subscribers who were considering ditching Netflix for a cheaper alternative. But for those of us still frustrated by the inability to watch everything, everywhere, all at once without waiting for even a second (I’m looking at you, Apple TV+, and your reluctance to let me gorge myself on For All Mankind without waiting a million years — OK, a week), saving some dinero may not be worth the agony of sitting through four long minutes of advertising.
Yes, the plan would include only four minutes of advertising an hour, and when you compare that to the number of advertising minutes per hour on traditional networks, it’s scarcely enough time to pour yourself another cocktail or nuke a batch of popcorn.
Netflix plans to introduce this new option by the end of the year in select markets, and the full rollout may not be available until early 2023. I think we can all agree that saving money (especially in this economy, yikes!) is a great thing. And advertising is a great thing, especially when it’s smart advertising that does what advertising is supposed to do, which is, you know, actually sell a product or a service.
And as an added bonus, this new bonus commercial program won’t be available on Netflix original movies or kids programming. Because the last thing any of us needs is our kids begging us for a new toy or video game while we’re trying to watch Knives Out 2.
