Netflix looks to expand its reach as ad plan surges

Netflix on Wednesday touted a surge in popularity for its low-cost streaming plan with ads as it looks to tap into the lucrative world of brands.

- WENDY LEE

The streaming giant said it now has more than 190 million monthly active viewers watching ads, mainly through a plan that costs $7.99 a month. The lowest cost ad-free plan costs $17.99 a month.

In May, Netflix said it had 94 million monthly active users watching ads through the cheaper plan. That translated to roughly 170 million monthly active viewers, the company said at the time.

However, the Los Gatos, Calif.-based company is now using a different methodology to measure its audience watching ads, making exact comparisons difficult.

Netflix now defines monthly active viewers as customers who watched at least 1 minute of ads on Netflix per month. It then multiplies that by the estimated average number of people in a household. Previously, Netflix had measured monthly active users based on the number of Netflix profiles watching content with ads.