Netflix’s Ad-Backed Tier Will Be Missing Some Series And Films At Launch, But COO Greg Peters Calls It “A Very Small Minority Of Viewing”

CNN is scaling back on original series and films and is looking to move to in-house production, citing costs as the network looks to cuts in division budgets.

Rodolphe Belmer, the former Canal+ CEO on the verge of heading up French network TF1, has stepped down from the Netflix Board.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor Just over three years ago, Netflix unequivocally shot down the idea that it would ever roll out an ad-supported streaming service. “When you read speculation that we are moving into selling advertising, be confident that this is false,” the streamer said in its second-quarter 2019 investor letter. “We believe we will have a more valuable business in the long term by staying out of competing for ad revenue and instead entirely focusing on competing for viewer satisfaction.” Clearly, Netflix’s thinking about advertising has changed. Both Netflix and Disney+ are launching ad-based tiers this fall, seeking to broaden their addressable markets and tap into a new revenue stream as subscriber growth has slowed — in Netflix’s case, it lost 1.2 million in the first half of 2022, compared with a net gain of 5.5 million in the prior-year period.

In a third-quarter earnings interview dominated by talk of advertising, top Netflix execs described it as a “sprint” to capture “a whole new audience” and a bid to woo advertisers affected by “the collapse of linear television.”

Selome Hailu It’s a good week for Ryan Murphy. Now on the fourth year of his five-year Netflix deal, he’s had the streamer’s most-watched title of the week for four weeks in a row now. For the previous three weeks, it was “Monster,” the limited series starring Evan Peters as serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer, which has now shifted to the No. 2 position. At the top of the chart for the Oct. 10-16 viewing window is “The Watcher,” Murphy’s limited series that racked up a chart-topping 125 million hours watched in its first four days of availability. The mystery thriller, co-created with Ian Brennan and adapted from a true story originally told in a 2018 New York magazine story, stars Naomi Watts and Bobby Canavale as a married couple being stalked.

Netflix may not be in the live sports business but it certainly wants viewers to know that it’s got some content around the edges.

Netflix stock dipped 1% to close the week at $230 a share as debate continued on Wall Street about the financial impact of the company’s embrace of advertising.

Netflix is to bring in time and date advertisements this November, the company has confirmed.

With the release of the Ryan Murphy-produced true-crime series “Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story”, family members of some of the notorious serial killer’s victims are expressing their displeasure with the dramatization.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter Netflix has given a series order to the Western action drama “The Abandons,” which hails from Kurt Sutter. The show was first reported to be in development at the streaming giant back in November 2021. Netflix has given the show a 10 episode order. The show’s official logline states: “As a group of diverse, outlier families pursue their Manifest Destiny in 1850s Oregon, a corrupt force of wealth and power, coveting their land, tries to force them out. These abandoned souls, the kind of lost souls living on the fringe of society, unite their tribes to form a family and fight back. In this bloody process, ‘justice’ is stretched beyond the boundaries of the law. The Abandons will explore that fine line between survival and law, the consequences of violence, and the corrosive power of secrets, as this family fights to keep their land.”

Netflix is undercutting Disney+ on price by a dollar a month as it prepares for a landmark expansion into advertising-supported streaming.

Todd Spangler NY Digital Editor After years of Netflix execs spurning the idea of serving up commercials to viewers, the streaming giant is flipping the switch on its first cheaper, ad-supported plan next month. Netflix Basic With Ads will launch in the U.S. on Nov. 3 at 9 a.m. PT, priced at $6.99 per month, the company announced. The cheaper plan will be available in 12 countries: Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Spain, the U.K. and the U.S. It will first roll out in Canada and Mexico on Nov. 1. Basic With Ads will be $2 cheaper than Netflix’s Basic plan ($9.99/month in the U.S. currently), which provides the ability to stream on one device at a time. Previously, the Basic plan has not supported HD, but with the launch of the ad tier, Netflix will provide video quality of up to 720p HD for both Basic With Ads and the plan with no ads.

EXCLUSIVE: Bill Rouhana, CEO of Chicken Soup for the Soul Entertainment, will wait as long as it takes — years even — for the right M&A transaction to come together. Two elements must fall into place, in his words: “industrial logic” and “financial excellence.”

FIFA 23 has earned the FIFA series its biggest-ever launch, EA has confirmed.Released on September 30, FIFA 23 is the final instalment in the long-running football video game series, which is set to be renamed EA Sports FC from next year following the end of EA’s partnership with FIFA.EA has now confirmed that over 10.3million players were registered on FIFA 23 within the first week, marking the biggest launch period in FIFA franchise history.“The response from our fans has been nothing short of incredible, and we’re thrilled that our community is playing with their favourite players and teams across FIFA 23 in record numbers,” Nick Wlodyka, SVP and GM of EA Sports FC, said in a statement.“With both the Men’s and Women’s World Cups, and exciting updates to our women’s club football content in game still yet to come, we’re just getting started on providing players with the most authentic and immersive experience yet.”According to Gamesindustry.biz, physical sales of FIFA 23 – which has topped the UK’s physical gaming chart – are up 1.6 per cent compared to those of FIFA 22 in 2021, reversing two years of decline in retail sales for the FIFA franchise.In our 4-star review, we said: “A few gripes aside, FIFA has rarely felt better. Thanks to the best Ultimate Team yet and immersive current-gen haptics that make you feel like you’re on the pitch, FIFA 23 is a stylish, expansive final bow for EA’s FIFA series as we know it.”PlayStation 5 has become the dominant platform in terms of FIFA launch sales, with 41 per cent of all boxed copies being sold for the console.

Netflix series about the serial killer.Speaking to The Guardian, Shirley Hughes said that she hadn’t seen all of Dahmer – Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story, which focused one of its 10 episodes on her son. However, she concluded that the events depicted “didn’t happen like that,” before questioning how such a show came to be made.“I don’t see how they can do that,” Hughes said.

More than three years after Reed Hastings said Netflix wants to be on BARB, the UK ratings agency has its wish.

Patrick Frater Asia Bureau Chief International streaming company Netflix has unveiled six new titles representing its first wide-ranging slate of content from Thailand. Its four films and two series span the comedy, suspense and comedy drama genres and hail from six different local production firms – GMM Studios, International, GDH, Song Sound Productions, Transformation Films, 18 Tanwa and Jungka Bangkok. Significantly, too, they are sourced from established directors or producers. Writer-director Prueksa Amaruji’s dark comedy film “Lost Lotteries” is produced by Ekachai Uekrongtham (“Beautiful Boxer,” “Pleasure Factory”) and will stream from mid-November.

Joe Otterson TV Reporter The “Goosebumps” series in the works at Disney+ has added Justin Long to its cast as a series regular, Variety learned exclusively. The show is based on the R.L. Stine book series of the same name. Variety exclusively reported the show had been ordered at Disney+ back in February. Per the official logline, “The series follows a group of five high schoolers who unleash supernatural forces upon their town and must all work together — thanks to and in spite of their friendships, rivalries and pasts with each other — in order to save it, learning much about their own parents’ teenage secrets in the process.” According to Disney Branded Television, the series is influenced by five of the most popular “Goosebumps” books.