Netflix Results Seem Familiar


Welcome to The Addition, where I bring together tech, media and culture. It's been a busy week this week. If you want more on what is happening in British politics, check out the House of Comments podcast I co-present with Emma Burnell. It's another way to get the paid version of this newsletter too. If you sign up via Patreon, you get this newsletter, my co-host Emma's newsletter and the extra episodes at the bargain price of £5 a month.

When Netflix announced an ad-supported tier it felt like a rubicon had been crossed, like some of the fundamental contract of that service and streaming in general had been broken.

And now customers don’t seem to care

According to Netflix's latest earning data, it has 277 million subscribers and its ad-supported plan members now make up more than 45% of signups in markets where it offers ads. Turns out people are happy with ads if they make things cheaper. In its letter to investors, the company said:

We’re making steady progress scaling our ads business. Ads tier membership grew 34% quarter on quarter, and we’re building an in-house ad tech platform that we’ll test in Canada in 2024 and launch more broadly in 2025.

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From the Podcast

Who Won the Euro 2024 Media Matchup? - With Rob Rea

Additional Conversations: Streaming the Olympics and Rebundling

The Addition

Charlotte Henry is a journalist and broadcaster who creates and runs The Addition newsletter and podcast; an award-winning publication looking at the crossover between media and technology.

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