Which titles are still blocked for Netflix ad-supported subs?
Which titles are still blocked for Netflix ad-supported subs?
Netflix has done a great deal of work to unlock all titles for its ad-supported customers, but there are still a few holdouts.
When Netflix first launched its ad-supported plan in 2022, one of the biggest drawbacks was the fact that a large selection of the streamer’s titles was not available on the tier. Licensing agreements with some studios forbade Netflix from placing their shows and movies on plans that would require them to be interrupted by commercials, and more than three years later, the issue still isn’t completely solved. However, Netflix has made great strides in this regard, and now less than 1% of the streamer’s catalog is unavailable to customers of its Standard with Ads plan.
Key Details:
- Shrinking margins: Only 0.74% of Netflix’s library is now unavailable to Standard with Ads subscribers.
- Big piece of the puzzle: The recent addition of Sony Pictures titles to the Standard with Ads plan was a boon to customers.
- Still outstanding:Titles from DreamWorks and other studios are still unavailable on the ad plan.
Per reporting from What's On Netflix, Sony Pictures titles are now available to ad-supported Netflix subscribers. Sony represented a large percentage of unavailable titles on the ad plan, so now, the percentage of titles not found on the Standard with Ads plan in the United States has dropped to 0.74%.
That translates to just 60 of the over 8,000 titles available in the Netflix catalog in the U.S. being blocked — significant progress from when the ad plan first launched in 2022. Back then, over 5% of the Netflix library was blocked for the streamer’s ad-supported customers.
There are still some key holdouts, however. The biggest is DreamWorks Animation Television; titles like “The Boss Baby” and “Kung Fu Panda: The Dragon Knight” still cannot be streamed by ad-supported Netflix subscribers.
Other studios whose titles are not available on the Netflix ad plan include NBCUniversal and Telemundo, AMC Studios, The Weinstein Company, and several independent distributors. The Netflix original series “House of Cards” is still not found on the ad plan, as the series was produced by Media Rights Capital. Under its contract with MRC, which is more than a decade old, Netflix cannot run ads alongside “House of Cards” without the studio’s say-so.
Netflix can continue to negotiate with these studios to determine a fair rate of compensation for showing their titles with ads, so there is hope that their shows will join the Standard with Ads tier soon. Keep checking back with The Streamable for more details on whether or not Netflix is augmenting its ad tier with more titles.
The Standard with Ads plan costs $9 per month after a recent price increase on all plans. Viewers can watch nearly the entire Netflix catalog on the service, including live sporting events at no extra cost.
Netflix
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