Netflix's upcoming ad-supported tier may not include all licensed titles 

After years of growth, Netflix seems to have hit the wall on subscribership. And while it has been known for its original shows and movies, the service has also relied on licensing a large collection of lucrative titles to draw eyeballs — they do just that, but with competitors bidding to grab their rights for the next contract, costs can be highly variable. As such, the company may decide to in bringing to reality something it's talked about for a while.

Deadline reports that the streaming giant is aiming to launch an ad-supported subscription tier sometime early next year. Microsoft will provide global sales and advertising technology for the venture.

A low-cost, ad-supported tier presents specific challenges for Netflix as it will need to deal with extra terms in negotiating contracts with licensors as well as attract and retain subscribers with not so much disposable income — they hop on and off the platform a lot, contributing to subscriber churn.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos told investors in the company's Q2 earnings call that he is confident about the customer experience for the new tier, even if it comes without the entire library of movies and series Netflix currently offers. The firm is still in talks with studios about allowing some of their content in the ad tier and hopes to ink deals in the run-up to its launch. But there are no guarantees at this point.

Netflix is still bleeding subscribers, reporting that it lost 1.28 million in its home markets of the U.S. and Canada and an additional 970,000 worldwide this spring — all told, worse off than the company's own forecast for a net loss of 2 million. Its current subscriber tally is at 220.7 million paid users globally and 73.3 million in the U.S. and Canada combined.

( Details and picture courtesy from Source, the content is auto-generated from RSS feed.)

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