Netflix: Start date is set: This is how much the advertising-financed subscription costs

The sparrows were already whistling it from the rooftops, but now it’s official: A cheaper, but also advertising-financed subscription model will soon be launched.

After stagnating subscription numbers, there have long been rumors about a new, advertising-financed subscription model from the streaming giant Netflix. The signs of this have recently become more and more concentrated – and now such a basic subscription has also been officially announced.

The implementation of this plan was initially planned for early 2023, but Netflix has now rethought this and is now launching the advertising-financed subscription in November.

The “Basic with Ads” level will be available from November 3rd in 12 countries, including Germany. The other starting countries of the new format are Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Europe, Great Britain and the United States. In the USA, the advertising-financed subscription will then cost 7 US dollars, while in Germany it is 4.99 dollars. Further price adjustments of the other levels are not associated with the introduction of the new model in Germany; everything stays the same here.

What does that mean specifically for subscribers to this package? When streaming, commercials with an individual duration of 15 to 30 seconds are then to be shown. These are then shown for four to five minutes per hour of streaming. So if you watch a one-hour series episode, you will have to deal with up to 20 commercials in the course of this episode – depending on the duration of the commercials.

Incidentally, “Basic with Ads” only supports a maximum resolution of 720p and some films and series on a smaller scale will not be shown at this subscription level due to licensing requirements. Greg Peters, Chief Operating Officer at Netflix, speaks of an estimated 5 to 10 percent of the content that – depending on the region of use – is missing.