Netflix is about to cave in when it comes to ad.
The company’s CEO Reed Hastings, a long-time opponent of ad-supported content on Netflix, said he is willing to reconsider his stance.
“Those who have followed Netflix know that I have been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription. But as much as I am a fan of that, I am a bigger fan of consumer choice. And allowing consumers who would like to have a lower price, and are advertising-tolerant, get what they want, makes a lot of sense,” said Hastings in an earnings interview Tuesday.
Hastings’ comments come after a bad quarter for Netflix, with the subscription service losing 200,000 subscribers – the first time Netflix reported a drop in subscriber count. The drop comes after a price increase (though the company CFO Spencer Neumann said in the earnings interview that the price increase is not the reason for the drop in subscribers), as well as moves to curb account sharing.
Hastings offered no other details on a possible ad-supported plan, but he did offer a very loose timeline. “That’s something we’re looking at now, we’re trying to figure out over the next year or two.”
Some of Netflix’s competitors, including HBO Max and Hulu, already offer ad-supported plans, and Disney Plus recently announced they will introduce an ad-supported plan in late 2022.
