Netflix doubles down on ‘no ads, no sport’ commitment

Ted Sarandos

Netflix has reaffirmed that it is not planning on introducing advertising or live sports to the platform.

Speaking at SeriesFest 2019 in Denver, chief content officer Ted Sarandos stated that neither advertising or bidding on sports rights are “not core to the proposition”.

The latter is an area which Amazon has made great strides in, signing the rights to 20 EPL matches per season starting from 2019/20, in addition to broadcasting a range of other sports such as the US Open Tennis.

However, Netflix has long-maintained that it has no interest in sports broadcasting and this statement reiterated that position.

Sarandos also spoke about recent price rises, and said that he does not believe it will affect subscriber numbers.

He said: “I honestly think about it not in terms of price but in terms of value. So if people are getting the value for the dollar, they should track each other really closely.”

He also was quoted as saying that the upcoming Apple TV+ and Disney+ are “going to be very unique”, as they all offer a wide range of different shows which will not be on the other platforms.