Tag: netflix

Netflix announces new Binge Ad format, Sponsorships and Downloads

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Netflix users may subscribe to the service for $6.99 per month, but the caveat is that the plan includes ads. The company published One Year Into Netflix Ads this week on the official blog to look back and into the future of ads on the platform.

According to the post, Netflix’s Standard with Ads plan has reached 15 million global monthly active users already. This may not look like much, when compared to the 247 million total subscribers, but the number is growing significantly.

Netflix has a partnership with Microsoft Advertising to deliver adverts to viewers. The company announced a number of new features and changes for advertisers and also for users subscribed to the ad-powered plan.

Binge Ad format and sponsorships

Netflix plans to introduce the binge ad format in the first quarter of 2024. Netflix customers who watch four episodes of a show in a row will get the fourth episode ad-free.

It is unclear if this new format will impact the overall time that advertisement plays per hour on Netflix.

Sponsorships are already available in the United States. Netflix plans to expand these globally in 2024.

Three types of sponsorships are available: title, moment and live sponsorships. Here is what they represent:

  • Title sponsorships are tied to specific titles.
  • Moment sponsorships allow advertisers to tap into local holidays.
  • Live sponsorships are available for live events, such as Netflix’s live sports event, the Netflix Cup.

Other advertising changes

Netflix announced a number of additional changes. New playtimes are available for ads. The service started with 15 and 30 second ads initially. Advertisers may now book 10, 20 and 60 seconds ads globally as well.

Also new are new advertising categories, including dating, pharma and enhanced financial services.

Another change affects the features of the Standard with Ads plan. Netflix notes that it includes 1080p quality now, lets users watch two concurrent streams and that downloads will also become available.

Netflix writes:

All members of the ad-supported plan will be able to download their favorite series and movies, making Netflix the only ad-supported streamer to offer downloads.

Netflix does not explain how this is going to work. It is likely that ads are downloaded along with series and movies. Downloads are a welcome feature, as it gives subscribers the option to watch content while offline, e.g., while travelling.

All paid Netflix plans support downloads once the change lands.

Closing Words

The advertising gamble along with the crackdown on password sharing seems to pay off for Netflix. These helped the company certainly increase its subscriber count.

Whether it is a good strategy in the long run remains to be seen. Netflix announced price increases in several regions recently, but only for ad-free plans.

Clearly, most of the changes benefit Netflix and advertisers only. The new binge watching format sounds like a nice improvement. The majority of changes focus on expanding ads on Netflix.

It looks as if Streaming Services are dying to lose customers

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Streaming services have turned the wrong way in the past couple of years. While ad-powered plans are the big thing currently, there are other developments that many customers may not like. These push more and more customers to other options, including P2P.

Netflix started to push its ad-powered plan earlier this year and many streaming services have followed already or will follow Netflix’s example. Customers pay less for the subscription, but they have to watch advertisement instead.

It seems to be a lucrative deal for streaming services, as more and more start to push advertising on the platform. Netflix and Disney+ customers pay less when they sign-up for the ad-powered plan. Amazon sneaked in a little price hike, as it announced that all Prime Video users would get ads, unless they added an ad-free add-on to their plan for some extra Dollars.

Too many streaming services are a problem

Streaming services promised to do better than cable and regular TV offerings. Tune in whenever you want and watch as much as you want. The price was relatively low in the beginning and there were only a few services. Content was not spread across numerous services.

Movies and TV shows went an entirely different route than music. If you subscribe to a music streaming service, you will get access to the same catalog, with a few notable exceptions.

For TV shows and movies, things are not as customer friendly. Star Wars is exclusively available at Disney+, Netflix has Stranger Things, and HBO has The Wire. If you want the full catalog, you need to subscribe to a dozen or so services.

If you subscribe to all, you end up paying as much as you would for cable in the United States. One option to overcome this is to hop between streaming services frequently. Subscribe to Netflix for a month, watch everything you want, then switch to another service, and so on. You pay for a single service per month and still get to watch all the new content that is released per year. Only downside is that you may have to wait a month or two before you can finally watch something.

Ads are a major problem

Advertisement is another major problem. Many streaming services have ad-powered plans already or plan to introduce them. Some even push ads for all subscribers, unless they pay more to get rid of ads again.

Ads are the cheapest option when it comes to subscriptions, but this comes at the cost of having to watch ads every hour. Things go back fullcircle to TV, where you also have to sit through ads to watch shows and movies.

Amazon plans to introduce even more ads to users of its Fire TV offerings. These are already focused on pushing Amazon content. Soon, they will also deliver contextual sponsored tiles to customers.

Piracy is booming again

P2P networks, the Usenet and other services are seeing a revival. This seems to coincide with the networks push against password sharing, price increases and the introduction of more and more ads and ad-powered plans.

One study from the UK saw a “notable increase in piracy levels over the past two years” and that a declining trend seen in earlier studies appears to be reversing.

There are several reasons for the revival. First, because price increases make streaming services a luxury good. While some may be fine with viewing ads to get a discount, others won’t be.

Second, because of what individual streaming services offer. If you go to a torrent site, you find almost every show or movie there. If you go to any streaming service, you find some shows and movies there only.

Closing Words

The attractiveness of streaming services is going down, especially for users who can’t keep up with the constant price increases and users who want access to all content. Ads may work for some to mitigate these price hikes, but they are a no-go for others.

As the attractiveness off streaming services is going down, it is the reverse for other options. One of these options is P2P; it will continue to rise, provided that streaming services don’t reverse their course.

It is probably inevitable that streaming services will lose customers in the medium to long run. Prices continue to increase, ads continue to be pushed and content continues to be spread across a dozen or so services.

Now You: what is your take on this?

Netflix on TV

Ads and higher prices: how to cope with a changing streaming landscape

Posted on by Martin Brinkmann

Streaming media pioneer Netflix set out to become the home of the cord cutting movement. Offer a better experience than Cable to a lower price.

Things have changed significantly since then. Now, there are numerous players on the market, e.g., Disney+, Netflix, Apple TV, Paramount, Prime Video, HBO Max and many more. All want a piece of the cake.

Things have turned for the worse for viewers. The rise of streaming services has spread films and shows across the networks. While most offer a core set of films and movies, including original productions, other content often moves between services.

It may happen that you watch Part 1 of a show using one service, but need to switch to another service to watch the second part. There is also little hope that you may watch all movies of an actor at a single service. Even worse, older content may not be available at all.

Ads and price jumps

Many streaming services have increased the price of a subscription in recent years or announced plans to do so. Netflix, for instance, increased the price in several regions in 2022 and may increase prices again according to reports.

The introduction of ad-powered plans is another recent development. Netflix and Disney launched plans with ads already. These cost less, e.g., Netflix’s Standard with Ads is available for $6.99 compared to $15.49 for its cheapest ad-free plan. Amazon will push advertisement to all Prime Video users, unless they subscribe to an ad-free option.

Ad-powered plans are cheaper, but they deteriorate the viewing experience, especially if ads are shown in the middle of streams. Still, they appear to be lucrative to streamers. First, because they unlock access to new viewers, and second, because it is highly lucrative.

In short: ads are being pushed and prices are increasing. Most streaming services will likely have introduced an ad-powered plan in the coming years.

What you may do about it

Internet users have one main option to deal with the development: to limit subscriptions. Instead of subscribing to a service for an entire year or longer, viewers could subscribe for only one or two months per year.

Streaming services hopping is a valid option to have access to all content, albeit not at the same time. This is not particularly problematic for most viewers. The majority of streaming services fail to release enough content to warrant a yearly subscription.

Subscribe to Netflix for one month and cancel afterwards. Subscribe to another service in the next month, and cancel again. It may not be as comfortable as having subscriptions for all services all the time, but you will save hundreds of Dollars per year doing so.

A full year Netflix Standard plan subscription sets you back $185.88 in the United States. Add yearly subscriptions to Disney+, Amazon Prime and some other services you like, and you pay hundreds of Dollar per year.

When you subscribe to a single month and then cancel, you end up paying a lot less.

There is also the possibility to completely dispense with subscriptions. Films and shows may be rented at public libraries, or from friends or colleagues. DVDs may not offer the best quality, but they are incredibly cheap on marketplaces such as eBay.

A problem looming at the horizon

Stream subscription hopping works only if the streaming services offer monthly subscription periods. There is a chance that this could change in the future to support only longer subscription periods.

No streaming service has announced plans of this kind though.

There is still the option to subscribe to none of the services, if that happens in the past. While the end of discs is also looming, it won’t happen in the coming years.

Closing Words