Netflix May Add Ads by the End of 2022 in Accelerated Timeline

By Mollie Cahillane 

Netflix rocked the streaming landscape last month when the company said it’s planning to introduce an ad-supported tier after years of staunchly advocating for an SVOD-only model.

While CEO Reed Hastings revealed nothing about a potential timeline for an ad-supported tier, industry experts agreed that it would be several years before Netflix had the framework to introduce an AVOD model.

Now, a report from the New York Times has revealed that the company could launch the AVOD model by the end of 2022 in an accelerated timeline. Netflix had no comment on the report.

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In a note to employees, Netflix executives reportedly said they plan to introduce the AVOD tier in the final two to three months of the year. No word yet on how an ad-supported model would look or what pricing options there will be.

Netflix has been staunchly against ads since the launch of its streaming division. Still, an increasingly crowded market, rampant password sharing and tumultuous world events have eroded subscriber growth and forced the streamer to evaluate other options.

The move to add ads comes after the company saw a dip in subscribers globally for the first time since October 2011, losing 200,000 last quarter.

Netflix partially blamed password sharing for the loss. The company, which has 221.6 million subscribers, estimates it’s also in 100 million more homes, including over 30 million in the U.S. and Canada.

If Netflix debuts an ad-supported model in 2022, the change could have implications for this year’s upfront negotiations, causing marketers to reevaluate how they allocate their dollars across linear and streaming.

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