Netflix just confirmed its plans to offer ad-supported service as the company’s Co-chief Ted Sarandos confirmed at the Cannes Lions Festival that Netflix is now adding an ad-backed tier. This option will not bring any Ads to Netflix as you know it today, and considering there are really powerful rivals like Peacock, you won’t ever have the option to avoid marketing altogether. This is just for people who don’t mind advertising, he said.

Sarandos did not share any further details on this. However, many sources claimed that Google and NBC Universal are the top contenders to help Netflix build the ads included plan. Either of these two big corporations would likely have an exclusive arrangement to serve ads, Roku has also had early discussions and industry executives talking to Netflix supposedly haven’t learned specifics such as the number of ads you’ll see each hour, or whether there will be ad targeting. [Although we suspect that we’ll probably be dependent on which corporation takes up the task of Serving ads, as Google could easily serve targeted ads for users that signed up with their Google account]
The future option is an acknowledgment that Netflix left a large group of customers off the table as the company lost subscribers for the first time in a decade since its last quarter, and it’s eager to return to the growth streak it had previously. This Ad-supported plan would help them get back customers that left the service because of the regular pricing scheme they had.
