Netflix Ad-Supported Basic Plan Now Official: Not Available In Malaysia

Its existence has been known for quite some time but only today that Netflix has officially launched a new lower-tier plan that is supported by advertisements. Officially called the Basic with Ads plan, it is currently available in 12 countries.

Depending on whether you view this as good or bad news, Malaysia is not part of the list for the time being. The rollout of the new plan will begin in Canada and Mexico on 1 November before expanding further to the United States, Australia, Brazil, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, South Korea, and the United Kingdom on 3 November while Spain will also receive it on 10 November.

Netflix noted that subscribers will see an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour. Each of these ads will be either 15 or 30 seconds in length and they will see them before the content starts or sometime during their viewing.

Aside from having advertisements and a lower price point, another factor that differentiates it from the existing Basic Plan is that subscribers will not be able to download Netflix content into their devices. Greg Peters, Netflix’s Chief Operating Officer and Chief Product Officer said that this is due to technical complexities in regard to showing advertisements for downloaded content.

Here is what the pricing for the new plan looks like:

Taking the pricing for the United States as an example, that is USD3 (~RM14.10) lower than the existing monthly fee for the Basic plan which is USD9.99 (~RM46.94). Netflix has also announced that it is going to upgrade the content resolution for the Basic plan from 480p SD to 720p HD which also applies to the new Basic with Ads plan.

Given the reach that Netflix has throughout the world, it is not surprising that the advertising industry has welcomed the new plan with open arms. Jeremi Gorman, the President of Worldwide Advertising for Netflix pointed out that almost all of the advertisement inventory for the launch period has almost sold out although the company did not say where and when they going to roll out the Basic with Ads plan next after these initial 12 markets.

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