Netflix’s advertising-supported tier to launch across 12 countries in early November

Netflix is set to launch its ad-supported tier in 12 countries including the US, UK, France and Canada in early November.

Reed Hastings

The AVoD service, called Basic with Ads, will go live in Canada and Mexico on Tuesday November 1, before rolling out in the US, UK, Australia, Brazil, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Spain on November 3.

The new service will be priced at £4.99 a month in the UK, US$6.99 in America and C$5.99 in Canada.

Across all markets, the tier will have between four and five minutes of ads per hour, each lasting between 15 and 30 seconds and playing before, during and after shows.

Netflix added that “a limited number of movies and TV shows won’t be available due to licensing restrictions, which we’re working on,” and that it won’t be possible to download shows from the AVoD service.

The early November launch means Netflix will go to market more than a month before Disney+ launches its own ad-supported tier. Netflix’s will also be cheaper, with Disney+’s advertising offering set to cost US$7.99 a month in the US.

The Basic with Ads offering is launching six months after Netflix co-founder, chairman and co-CEO Reed Hastings unveiled the plan during an investor call. Since then, the company has partnered with Microsoft as its global advertising technology and sales partner.

Importantly, the announcement comes five days ahead of Netflix’s third-quarter earnings report, which will no doubt now be dominated by talk of how the introduction of an ad-supported tier will help the streamer return to subscriber growth.

In the second quarter, Netflix lost around 970,00 subscribers after shedding 200,000 in the previous quarter. At the last count, Netflix had 220.7 million subs.

The company’s stock price has tanked over the past 12 months, falling from around US$700 per share a year ago to US$229 at press time. In June, the stock fell as low as US$167 but has recovered slightly in recent months.

In a blog post announcing the AVoD launch date, chief operating officer and chief product officer Greg Peters said Netflix is confident it now has a “price and plan for every fan.”

“While it’s still very early days, we’re pleased with the interest from both consumers and the advertising community – and couldn’t be more excited about what’s ahead. As we learn from and improve the experience, we expect to launch in more countries over time,” he said.