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Hulu has an ad and an ad-free version of its streaming service, what’s to stop Netflix from doing the same?

Paul O'Brien Changed status to publish February 21, 2022

In the current market, total ad spend is pretty flat (actually declining a bit), so it is a fight to steal those ad dollars from somewhere else (i.e. spend some on Netflix, instead of running prime-time ads on broadcast NBC). OTT ad spend is still a tough sell for most marketers, and streaming services have struggled to fill their ad inventory. Folks like Paramount, Peacock, etc… have a bit of advantage, as they go to existing advertisers on their broadcast side, and give them some deals to bundle in some OTT add spend.

And those orgs that are bought into ‘internet ad spending’ typically prefer to spend those dollars on FB, Google, Amazon, etc… where the ROI is more proven (at this point).