Netflix is making an unusual move: It will ask inactive members if they want to keep the service. If they fail to respond to the request, the streamer will cancel their subscriptions, reports Bloomberg.
That’s a major departure from most media services — print or digital.
But for Netflix, the inactive number is a tiny fraction, less than half of 1 percent, of its overall user base. The streamer counts nearly 70 million subscribers in the U.S. alone.
“We’re asking everyone who has not watched anything on Netflix for a year since they joined to confirm they want to keep their membership,” Eddy Wu, who oversees product innovation, said in a blog post. “We’ll do the same for anyone who has stopped watching for more than two years. Members will start seeing these emails or in-app notifications this week.”
Such subscribers may be grateful for the heads-up, especially in a tight economy.
Netflix also announced today it will turn Sarah Vaughan’s bestseller “Anatomy of a Scandal” will be transformed into a series. David E. Kelley (“Big Little Lies,” “Goliath”) and Melissa James Gibson (“House of Cards,” “The Americans”) will take on showrunner, writing and executive producer duties.
The streamer describes “Anatomy of a Scandal” as “an insightful and suspenseful series about a sexual consent scandal amongst British privileged elite and the women caught up in its wake.”