Netflix Basic with Ads is finally here, offering a cheaper Netflix subscription at $6.99 per month with the tradeoff that you might have to watch some ads with your movies and TV shows. I spent some time messing around with a new account on the tier on Thursday, and while the experience of using Netflix was mostly the same, what struck me was the unpredictability of how many ads I’d have to watch.
Netflix says you can expect to see an
Jay Petersaverage of 4 to 5 minutes of ads per hour. That’s about what I experienced as well, but I was surprised by when the ads might appear. It isn’t like broadcast TV where you knew exactly when and, often, how many ads you’d have to sit through before the show came back.
The ads tier is obviously not available in Romania yet, but based on these reviews I find it mostly unappealing. The biggest issue for me – and many other viewers I suspect – would be increased unpredictability: you can’t know when to expect ads, how many of them, which shows have ads inserted and which don’t, and, worst of all, you don’t know which shows will be straight out unavailable because of licensing restrictions. A more compelling and consistent experience would be to only play ads between episodes in a series, or before a movie, as in cinemas; that way Netflix would retain at least some of its premium feel by not interrupting a story.
Netflix launched its ad tier Thursday, and several popular series are missing from the streamer’s library due to licensing restrictions, including originals House of Cards and Arrested Development.
While the titles still appear in the Discover tab and the search function, a small lock icon appears in the top right corner to indicate that subscribers of the Basic with Ads plan do not have access.
As expected, several other series are also not available with the ad tier, including Peaky Blinders, New Girl, The Magicians, The Last Kingdom, The Sinner, Good Girls, Queen of the South, The Good Place, and Friday Night Lights as well as a number of movies from various studios.
Netflix executives had already indicated that about 5% to 10% of programming would be missing from the Basic With Ads tier at launch, though up until now it had not been clear which titles would be impacted. Having built a powerhouse of streaming on the premise of an ad-free experience for both consumers and creators, it isn’t possible for Netflix to simply throw the switch and have all titles available both with and without ads. Instead, the move has required a months-long process of obtaining rights and revising contracts.
Katie Campione
Personally, I am increasingly weary of advertising, particularly on YouTube, where ad slots seems to be multiplying, and ads longer than 5 seconds are becoming more frequent. I’ve seen longer clips interrupted by double ad slots every 5 to 10 minutes, which feels downright excessive. If Netflix pursues the same tactic with its cheapest tier I doubt I will ever switch to it. If you want to save money on streaming services, the better method is to simply cancel subscriptions regularly and reactivate them once several interesting series become available. I am seriously considering canceling Netflix for a while to catch up on the science-fiction and fantasy series on Amazon Prime Video; between it and HBO, I suspect I won’t miss Netflix much for quite some time.
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