Recently, Netflix released a new, slightly cheaper tier on its streaming platform which has just about everything that Netflix’s Basic plan includes, only users pay $3.00 less a month.
Netflix’s ad-supported tier plays significantly fewer commercials than regular cable television, which is estimated to be 13.3 minutes per hour. The ad-supported plan averages less than five minutes of ads per viewing hour, yet almost half of Netflix users switching from Basic to ad-supported plans feel there is too much ad content.
“Having to watch only five minutes of ads per hour is a delightful reprieve from the much heavier ad loads of linear TV,” said Michael Greeson, founder and principal analyst at Aluma. “But linear TV is not necessarily the advertising benchmark for today’s multi-source viewers, a growing number of which came of age watching ad-free streaming video services such as Netflix. Undoubtedly, this has altered how they perceive ad loads.”
Aluma Connected Media Insights crunched the numbers and found that there was a difference of opinion on Netflix’s ad length depending on whether a customer was new or had downgraded from the Basic plan with no ads.
For new subscribers, 55 percent found the advertisement amount to be about right, while 33 percent found it to be a bit too much, and 12 percent deemed it far too much. Of subscribers who switched from Basic to Basic with Ads, 39% thought the ads-to-binging ratio was about right, 32 percent thought it was a bit too much, and 28 percent opined the amount was far too excessive.
Additionally, Aluma’s research also uncovered some more insights into Netflix’s conflicted customer base:
- Half of ad-supported Netflix users new to the service are 65 and older, four times that of ad-free switchers.
- 25% of ad-free switchers are Hispanic, twice the incidence among new subscribers.
- New ad-supported users are 33% more likely to live in the Southern US than are ad-free switchers.
- Ad-free switchers are 34% more likely than new subscribers to have children in the home.
- New ad-supported users are four times more likely than ad-free switchers to be Late Mainstreamers or Tech Laggards.
Subscribers can easily change their plans at any time, so if you don’t mind ads it might be worth testing out Netflix’s ad-supported tier. Check back with Cord Cutters News as more stages of Aluma’s research into how users perceive the ad loads of paid streaming platforms are released.