In January 2016, Netflix launched officially globally including in Uganda. The long waited potential DSTV competitor in Africa, and movie streaming service has for years rejected calls for an ad-supported streaming tier. Netflix co-founder and co-CEO Reed Hastings said on Tuesday’s earnings call that the company is “quite open to offering even lower prices with advertising, as a consumer choice.
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”Apparently, the company is now looking into the option and “trying to figure out over the next year or two.” Hastings admits that adding an ad-supported tier would be a big change in thinking for the company, saying that he’s historically been “against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription.”
Ina 360 turn of events, Hastings now pitches the idea of an ad-supported tier as something that “makes a lot of sense” for “consumers who would like to have a lower price and are advertising tolerant.”
The company also announced on Tuesday that it had lost subscribers for the first time in a decade, Netflix seems open to a lot of things that it had rejected — co-CEO Ted Sarandos even laid out what might be necessary for a long-rumored move into live sports. According to the Deadline, he said “I’m not saying that we’ll never do sports but we’ll have to see a path to growing a big revenue stream and a great profit stream with it,” which is a significant shift from the flat no Netflix has previously offered.
Once this new plan is implemented, Netflix would join its competitors like Hulu, Peacock, and even HBO Max. This means the new ad-supported plan would cost less than the existing plans. Currently, Netflix charges $4 a month for, $8 a month for its basic tier, $10 a month for its standard tier, and $12 a month for its premium tier.
