Bad news for Apple TV owners looking to sign up for Netflix’s ad-supported subscription.
According to Variety, Netflix’s lower cost ad-supported subscription doesn’t work with Apple TV or Apple TV 4K devices. Netflix moved the launch of its ad-tier subscription from 2023 to early November, telling ad buyers it wanted its ad tier to come out before the December 8 debut of Disney+’s ad tier. The news came shortly after Netflix confirmed it snagged two Snap execs to run its advertising division, bringing on Snap’s chief business officer Jeremi Gorman as president of worldwide advertising and Snap’s vp of sales, Americas, Peter Naylor, to serve as vp of ad sales.
A Netflix rep confirmed to Variety that “Basic with ads plan support on tvOS is not available at launch but coming soon.” A message on Netflix’s customer-support site says “basic with ads is not supported.” The error message usually means subscribers need to update their device to support the Basic With Ads plan.
The ad-supported subscription plan launched in the U.S. today (Thursday, Nov. 3), and is also available in 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, South Korea, Spain, and the U.K.
The Netflix Basic With Ads is $6.99, less than the Basic Plan which is $9.99. The ad-supported plan does not include Netflix’s full content catalog due to licensing restrictions, something the company’s chief operating officer Greg Peters revealed to reporters during a briefing last month.
Earlier this year, Netflix announced a global subscriber loss of nearly one million in the second quarter, dropping to nearly 221 million total subscribers.