Netflix’s new ad-supported plan to start at $6.99 a month in the US

The move comes as the streaming giant battles a subscriber churn after it lost nearly a million subscribers during the three-month period ending June 30, marking the biggest ever quarterly fall in subscribers.

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Apart from having, for the first time, third-party ads on its platform, the subscription plan will have its video quality capped to 720p while having an average of four to five minutes of ads per hour.

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Netflix said that a “limited” number of shows will not be available in this particular tier due to licencing restrictions which the company is “working on” to sort out. Users will also not be able to download titles. At launch, ads will be 15 or 30 seconds in length, which will play before and during shows and films

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India is not one of the 12 countries where Netflix is first launching the ad-supported plan, although the company has said that it expects to roll-out the service in more countries over time.

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However, it is worth noting that Netflix has some of the cheapest subscription plans compared to its services in other geographies and the impact on the existing subscription prices as and when it launches the ad-version plan in the country

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In India, Netflix plans start from Rs 149, or about two dollars a month, albeit that is a mobile-only plan. For other devices like smart televisions, the cheapest Netflix plan in India starts from Rs 199 per month which converts to around $2.6 a month.

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