On a Tuesday call about its Q1 2022 earnings, Netflix executives announced the company would begin looking into how to bring advertising to its platform. The move reverses the company’s longtime aversion to ads and comes after the streamer lost subscribers for the first time in over a decade. Now, Netflix could finally open itself to advertising as it faces stiff revenue growth headwinds and has seen its stock plummet nearly 30% since the April 19 earnings announcement.
“Those who have followed Netflix know that I’ve been against the complexity of advertising and a big fan of the simplicity of subscription,” co-CEO Reed Hastings said on the earnings call. “But as much I’m a fan of that, I’m a bigger fan of consumer choice.”
