Netflix Says Its Ad Tier Now Has 94 Million Monthly Active Users

Netflix said its cheaper, ad-supporter tier now has 94 million monthly active users -- an increase of more than 20 million since its last public tally in November. CNBC reports: The company and its peers have been increasingly leaning on advertising to boost the profitability of their streaming products. Netflix first introduced the ad-supported plan in November 2022. Netflix's ad-supported plan costs $7.99 per month, a steep discount from its least-expensive ad-free plan, at $17.99 per month. Netflix also said its cheapest tier reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any U.S. broadcast or cable network. "When you compare us to our competitors, attention starts higher and ends much higher," Netflix president of advertising Amy Reinhard said in a statement. "Even more impressive, members pay as much attention to mid-roll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves."

Interesting stat

[jrnvk]

From the article: âoeNetflix also said its cheapest tier reaches more 18- to 34-year-olds than any U.S. broadcast or cable network.â

Thatâ(TM)s pretty impressive.

Beginning of the end

[bussdriver]

Ad supported take overs ruin everything slowly over time. The customer migrates from being people to being the advertisers becoming the customer and then it turns to shit.

I've been putting up with Amazon ads

[rsilvergun]

To watch the new Gundam but I can tell you when the ads kick in I just pick up another device, an old phone, and watch that while I wait for the ads to finish. At no point in time am I paying any attention to the ads and I mute the audio until they are over.

It doesn't matter if you have 94 million subscribers if only a handful of them pay enough attention to the ads to be worth the cost of the ad buy. Still there's an entire advertising agency industry and a lot of them are well connected with friends in high places so even though ads don't really work anymore I'm sure they're not going away anytime soon.

I guess it's better than buying ads on slashdot.

Re:

[blahbooboo]

You still see the ad, however briefly, which is all that's needed for a brand to build recognition.

Re: I've been putting up with Amazon ads

[madbrain]

Just say no to ads. Either pay up the extra to not see them, or don't stream the video. Or use torrents. There is no circumstance that I will pay money again to see ads. Cancelled my satellite TV subscription years ago.

Re:

[sabbede]

There's a great point in there. If I'm paying, I shouldn't see ads! If it's free, then run all the damn ads you want. Pluto is purely ad supported, that's fine. Amazon needs to pick whether they are going to be free with ads or pay with no ads. Anything else is BS.

Re:

[Der Huhn Teufel]

This is the kind of nonsense people who sell ads tell to people who buy them, usually followed along with "studies" that contain an awful lot of conflicts of interest, questionable psychological findings, and bad statistics. I have no doubt that some advertising works. I can also tell you that it has unintended consequences - I do not go to gas pumps that advertise to me more than once, and I stopped going to a CVS near me because they changed their drink coolers to display ads alongside their product. Peo

Re:

[Alumoi]

and make it to the list of 'do not buy from' companies.

Re: I've been putting up with Amazon ads

[mhajicek]

Brave still blocks ads on Prime.

Re:

[sabbede]

My TV doesn't have a browser... But if there's a domain to be blocked, that's doable.

Re:

[Geoffrey.landis]

To watch the new Gundam but I can tell you when the ads kick in I just pick up another device, an old phone, and watch that while I wait for the ads to finish. At no point in time am I paying any attention to the ads and I mute the audio until they are over.

I don't mind the first time or two I see an ad. They are usually well worth watching; the production values and the camera work are usually excellent-- usually much higher quality than the content, well worth watching>

But the problem is that they keep doing the same advertisements over and over and over.

Re:

[martin-boundary]

Your eye recognizes the ad, otherwise you wouldn't be changing the channel.

Once the ad has been recognized, it takes up space in your brain, even if you didn't watch the whole thing.

Periodically, you switch back to the channel to see if the ads have stopped. If they haven't you switch the channel again. To know if the ads have stopped, your eye recognizes an ad. Once the ad has been recognized, it takes up space in your brain.

Advertising works on repetition, like any other propaganda. Repetition streng

Re:

[sabbede]

There's also a big difference in how Amazon and Netflix handled ads. Netflix added a cheaper tier, Amazon made the existing tier the ad-supported one, because they are a bag of dicks. There's a psychological component that has me refusing to pay Amazon one f-ing dollar more to not see ads while I didn't complain about Netflix raising prices, and it is entirely because of how each service handled it.

Instead, I tell Alexa that I'm so sorry to hear that Jeff Bezos is now so poor he has to run ads all the d

People don't hate ads *that* much

[Powercntrl]

Every time there's a discussion about Google or Meta hoovering up personal info and how "there oughta be a law!" inevitably comes up, I always feel the need to point out that given the prospect of being forced onto a paid subscription (or in this case, a more expensive subscription), suddenly ads just don't seem so bad.

Re:

[jacks smirking reven]

I get ads have a role to play economically and culturally but for the love of God mix it up a bit, don't make me watch the same 26s over and over and over.

Talking to you Olive Garden and your manicotti deal and yes I remembered it but I remembered how much I hate seeing it.

Amazes me that people still watch Netflix

[linuxrunner]

I honestly just don't see the appeal. You're paying far too much money for what amounts to mostly junk available. Are people really watching that much TV still?

Re:

[VampireByte]

We cancelled Netflix a few months ago when we realized it had been months since we'd used it and none of the content (that we hadn't already seen, eg. Arrested Development and Seinfeld) looked appealing.

Re:

[ledow]

I stopped watching broadcast TV decades ago.

I was already without a TV and just cherry-picking individual shows to record/download (including chopping out the ads using Shotcut) before Netflix ever started streaming.

I don't understand letting an entertainment device wash mindlessly over you for hours on end every night. It doesn't seem like living at all. And when you include ads and the fact that people PAY to do this, it's one of the most bizarre things about humans.

People in work are always talking abo

Re: Amazes me that people still watch Netflix

[ZERO1ZERO]

How do you chop out all the ads? That takes a minute a week? Sounds like bullshit tbh. Either download the content with no ads already or what you are recording it off the air and then editing the video. Presumably you have to watch at least some of the ads to be able to edit them out.

Good for Netflix

[Slashythenkilly]

Dumped them 15 years ago, never looked back.

Ads fail.

[Randseed]

"Even more impressive, members pay as much attention to mid-roll ads as they do to the shows and movies themselves."

How should he possibly know that? Just because they keep you from fast forwarding through the fifteenth rerun of the same auto insurance ad you've seen doesn't mean that you pay any attention to it. In fact, running an excessively stupid or annoying ad is likely to get people to NOT buy your product, just like running and rerunning it on every "break" is going to accomplish the same thing. So for this salesdroid to make that statement, he's implying that Netflix is somehow spying on its customers illegally. Great job.

I don't know if TV is watchable now

[diffract]

or if they're still pandering to and pushing diversity and homosexuality

Re:

[phantomfive]

Just come out of the closet already, man. It's the 2020s, no one will look down on you.

No they don't

[paul_engr]

"they pay as much attention to ads as they do the content" Bullshit, anybody?

NOT watching ads....on Netflix

[bsdetector101]

Netflix is the only streaming service I pay for so I'm NOT watching ads.

I get it for free

[gabrieltss]

I get Netflix with adds with my Cell Phone plan along with AppleTV+. But I think I only watched one movie on AppleTV+ - never watched it since. Netflix I watch occasionally if there is something I really want to see on it.

But anymore, I watch stuff on over their air TV. There are plenty of channels now and many show the older shows I like to watch. I'm not paying for a streaming service to see what I can see for free. Yes over their air tv has adds but so does Netflix (which you pay for).

These days I'