- Report claims price hike will hit customers once strike ends
- Users in the US and Canada are said to see price changes first
- READ MORE: PR expert warns Netflix could suffer MAJOR damage from strikes
Netflix plans to raise prices for its ad-free service to make up for lost revenue during the Hollywood actors’ strike, a report claims.
The streaming giant will issue the price hike “a few months” after the strike ends, which could happen this month.
The ad-free Standard plan costs $15.49 per month, while the Premium costs $19.99.
The union of more than 15,000 film and television actors began the strike in July to demand more salaries and residual payments from streaming services.
And Netflix has taken the hit of delaying the release of popular shows like ‘Stranger Things,’ which is now set to premiere in 2025.
Netflix plans to raise prices for its ad-free service to make up for lost revenue during the Hollywood actors’ strike, according to a report.
Other streaming services have also had to suffer delays: HBO postponed ‘The Last of Us’ and Hulu had to delay ‘A Handmaid’s Tale’.
DailyMail.com has contacted Netflix.
The Wall Street Journal reports that the surge will likely begin first in the U.S. and Canada.
Findlay-Wilson, CEO of Energy PR, warned this month that Netflix could suffer significant reputational damage from Hollywood’s continued strikes because it has been positioned as the narrative’s ultimate “villain.”
The Screen Actors Guild–American Federation of Television and Radio Artists (SAG-AFTRA), which represents approximately 160,000 actors, has been on strike since failing to reach an agreement with the Alliance of Motion Picture and Television Producers (AMPTP). over concerns about waste. and the use of AI.
They followed the Writers Guild of America (WGA), which has been on strike since May 2.
And Netflix has taken the hit of delaying the release of popular shows like ‘Stranger Things,’ which is now set to premiere in 2025.
Netflix has had to postpone at least 43 shows and movies due to the strike.
And it seems that the streaming platform’s customers will have to pay for their losses.
Netflix users already felt the company’s “betrayal” when it banned password sharing in May.
Customers who pay for standard or premium plans, which cost between $15.50 and $20 per month, can share their login credentials with someone for an additional $8 per month, a $2 discount from the standard basic standalone plan of the company.
Without providing details about how it authenticates subscribers’ identities or accounts, Netflix assured that everyone living in the same household will be able to continue streaming TV shows and movies “wherever they are: at home, on the go, on vacation.”
The long-awaited move has been looming over the US since Netflix unveiled it in 2021 to end lost revenue: Citi Bank estimated the company lost $6 billion annually from password sharing.
While Netflix did not share the revenue loss, it revealed in January that “widespread account sharing” has surpassed 100 million viewers.
Those passwords were funneled through Netflix’s 232.5 million paying subscribers worldwide, who generated the bulk of the company’s $32 billion in revenue last year.
But a year of lackluster subscriber growth included the most significant customer losses in more than a decade.
Netflix said 2022 had been a “difficult year” due to its first subscriber loss in more than a decade – its customer base fell by 200,000 subscribers in the first quarter.
