Netflix ad-supported plan to debut in November: Price, availability and other details

Netflix is finally launching its affordable subscription plan with ads. The popular streaming service on Thursday announced ‘Basic with Ads’ – it’s first-ever ad-supported affordable video streaming plan priced at $6.99 a month which is roughly Rs 500. The new plan will go live on November 3 at 9am.

“Basic with Ads will launch just six months after we first announced the option of a lower priced ads plan. None of this would have been possible without our team’s hard work or Microsoft’s extraordinary partnership. The switch from linear is happening at an ever-increasing speed, with streaming now surpassing broadcast and cable in the US. We’re confident that with Netflix starting at $6.99 a month, we now have a price and plan for every fan,” company writes on its blog post.

While the Netflix’ Basic with Ads will not affect the other existing ad-free plans, the company says that starting November 3 both Basic and Basic with Ads will offer video quality of 720p/HD with no ability to download titles. The Basic Plan that costs Rs 199 currently offers 480p display resolution. Few movies and TV shows won’t be available due to licensing restrictions which Netflix is working on.

For those waiting for this plan to come to India, they will have to wait a little longer as it is initially launching in only these 12 countries- Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the UK and the US over a period of 10 days.

Basic with Ads subscribers will see 15- or 30-seconds long ads which will play before and during shows and films. The company says that it will offer ‘broad targeting capabilities by country and genre’ to advertisers to help them reach the correct audience. It will also enable advertisers to prevent their ads from showing up on irrelevant content. Netflix has also partnered with DoubleVerify and Integral Ad Science to verify the viewability and traffic validity of ads starting in the first quarter of the next year.