If you’ve been hoping for a continued life without advertising in your (paid) Netflix, it may be time to let go. The company has detailed how many users it has on its advertising-supported tier, and the number is climbing. The company is also expanding the number of countries it offers the ‘upgrade’ in.
There’s no need for immediate panic, however. South Africa isn’t on the list. This time. The affected countries are mostly in the Northern hemisphere, with a slight detour to the Philippines and Thailand.
Paying (less) for Netflix
Specifically, Netflix is expanding its ‘with ads’ service to Austria, Belgium, Colombia, Denmark, Indonesia, Ireland, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, the Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Switzerland, and Thailand. The company says this will provide customers “more affordable plan options and advertisers more opportunities to reach our audience.” We suspect that last one might be more important to the streaming platform.
The fact that it now has more than 250 million subscribers on the ad-served tier has something to do with it. Of those, 80% are watching media on the platform each month. They’re all paying, of course.
When Netflix eventually brings advertising to South Africa (and it will happen), we can expect AI to be deeply involved. The service also recounts how its new artificial intelligence offering will benefit advertisers in particular. AI will “optimize media plans based on brands’ objectives.” It’ll also see agents deployed to “manage, optimize, and purchase ads on Netflix.”
Viewers can expect personalised ad campaigns too, based on their viewing habits. What, you didn’t think your user data wouldn’t be used against you? These will “dynamically adjust the ads [and viewing caps] our members see,” said the streamer.
