Netflix Ad Tier Reaches 15 Million Active Users

Netflix announced that their ad-supported tier now has 15 million monthly active users. In a blog post on the company’s website, President of Advertising Amy Reinhard, explained how the first year of the ad-supported plan has gone. She wrote about how the goals in Netflix’s quest to stabilize their service have led to individual sponsorships for programs. Already, Frito Lay is sponsoring Love Is Blind and more agreements are on the way for programs like Squid Game: The Challenge. 

Despite the rosy tone from Netflix, some users online have correctly looked at the current ad-supported streaming landscape and concluded that the individual companies have essentially recreated cable television. (When you total up those bills, it’s hard not to argue!) Here’s what else the ad president had to say about the milestone.

“We have built an incredible foundation, focusing on areas advertisers told us matter most…” Reinhard wrote. “Our goal isn’t just to offer the same products and tools the industry has come to expect — although we’ve made a lot of progress on that front over the last year. It’s to build something bigger and better than what exists today.”

Squid Game: The Challenge Coming Soon

In the meantime, Squid Game: The Challenge is on deck for the popular streamer. After the drama took the world by storm during the last few years, Netflix had the bright idea to make a reality compeitition series based on the acclaimed series. (Now, we’ll ignore for a moment that Squid Game: The Challenge, as a show, misunderstands the series themes and actual text!) Still, people seem excited to see all the contestants try for that massive cash prize. Here’s how Netflix describes the upcoming series for interested parties.

“With both the largest cast and lump sum cash prize in reality TV history, 456 real players will enter the game in pursuit of a life-changing reward of $4.56 million. As they compete through a series of games inspired by the original show – plus surprising new additions – their strategies, alliances, and character will be put to the test while competitors are eliminated around them. The stakes are high, but in this game, the worst fate is going home empty-handed.”

Netflix Puts The Clamps On Password Sharing

Netflix’s crackdown on password sharing dominated a lot of the conversation around the company this year. So many people were just used to tossing a login to a friend or family member. But, even after the draconian rules were put into place, some viewers decided to pay for their own subscription. Netflix touted 5 million subscribers as a result of the changes earlier this year.

“While we’ve made steady progress this year, we have more work to do to reaccelerate our growth,” Netflix wrote in a previous letter to shareholders. “We remain focused on: creating a steady drumbeat of must watch shows and movies; improving monetization; growing the enjoyment of our games; and investing to improve our service for members.”

“Now that we’ve launched paid sharing broadly, we have increased confidence in our financial outlook,” they continued. “We expect revenue growth will accelerate in the second half of 2023 as monetization grows from our most recent paid sharing launch and we expand our initiative across nearly all remaining countries plus the continued steady growth in our ad-supported plan.”

Are you surprised everyone’s hopped onto ads? Let us know down in the comments!