Aluma – Half of Ad-Supported Netflix Subscribers Find the Ad Load Excessive

Significant differences found between new subscribers and ad-free switchers.

Though Netflix’s ad-supported tier averages less than five minutes of advertisements per viewing hour, 49% of ‘Basic with Ads’ subscribers found it to varying degrees heavy, with 17% seeing it as excessive. This despite the fact linear TV programming has more than 13 minutes per viewing hour, roughly 2.5 times that of Netflix’s ad-supported tier.

“Having to watch only five minutes of ads per hour seems like a delightful reprieve from the much heavier ad loads of linear TV,” said Michael Greeson, founder and principal analyst at Aluma. “But linear TV is not necessarily the advertising benchmark for today’s multi-source viewers, a growing number of which came of age watching ad-free streaming video services such as Netflix. Undoubtedly, this has altered how they feel about ad loads.”

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Aluma’s research found 28% of ad-supported Netflix subscribers that switched from an ad-free tier found the ad load far too heavy, 2.3 times greater than new subscribers that signed up “Basic with Ads.”

Other key insights from Aluma’s research include:

• Nearly half new ad-supported Netflix users are 65 and older, four times the rate among ad-free switchers.
• 25% of ad-free switchers are Hispanic, twice the incidence among new subscribers.
• New ad-supported users are 33% more likely to reside in the Southern US than are ad-free switchers.
• Ad-free switchers are 34% more likely than new subscribers to have children in the home.
• New ad-supported users are four times more likely than ad-free switchers to be Late Mainstreamers or Laggards.

Aluma is in the last stages of a new report on how users perceive the ad loads of premium ad-supported SVOD service users including Netflix, Hulu, HBO Max, Paramount+, Peacock, and ESPN+, and that examines the relationship between cancellation proclivities and ad load perceptions. As well, it includes a detailed profile of ad-supported versus ad-free users of each service.

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