Netflix May Launch Ad-Supported Tier By End Of Year, Sooner Than Previous Plan

The emergence of Isabel May as the lead in Taylor Sheridan’s frontier epic series 1883 is such an unlikely discovery story that it still has the actress trying to come to grips with a star-making turn that should factor in the Emmy race.

Kieran Sadlier has ambitions to reach the Republic of Ireland senior set-up and is hoping hard work at Bolton Wanderers will help to fulfill that long term aim.

Netflix’s fabled “culture deck,” which over the years has taken on the importance of the Magna Carta in tech and business circles, has gotten some updates reflecting the streaming giant’s current circumstances.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorNetflix loves to tout its culture of avoiding rules and minimizing corporate red tape. But of course, the company does have operating guidelines, famously detailed in the Netflix Culture document posted on its website.

ad-supported tier as soon as the end of 2022, according to a note to employees obtained by the New York Times.That’s also when Netflix plans to begin cracking down on password sharing, the newspaper reported Tuesday. Both the crackdown on password sharing as well as the ad-supported tier were ideas that the streamer had already floated in response to the Q1 loss of 200,000 subscribers that the company reported last month.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorNetflix may dive into the ad-supported VOD space as soon as the fourth quarter of 2022 — sooner than it originally signaled.Last month, as Netflix reported an unexpected drop in streaming subscribers in Q1 and forecast a 2 million sub loss for the second quarter, the company announced plans to roll out a lower-cost version of its streaming service with ads. Co-CEO Reed Hastings told investors at the time that Netflix would “figure out” the AVOD strategy “over the next year or two.”The company has evidently accelerated that timeline: Netflix informed employees of a Q4 target date for the ad-supported tier in a recent memo, the New York Times reported, citing two anonymous sources.

EXCLUSIVE: The Crown duo Left Bank Pictures and Netflix have set Little Voice, The Gifted and Reign star Sean Teale as male lead in their new Spain-set series Palomino (working title, which will likely change).

Netflix has opened an office in Italy and unveiled a huge slate of scripted and unscripted series and films from many of the country’s biggest producers, with Co-CEO Reed Hastings detailing the streamer’s roots in the nation.

Nick Vivarelli International CorrespondentNetflix on Friday officially opened its Italian base in Rome, in a classy neoclassical building near the iconic Via Veneto, and announced a substantial slate of originals that stand as testament to what co-CEO Reed Hastings called the streaming giant’s “growing business in Italy.”“The breadth and variety of our Italian slate perfectly represents our ambitions,” said Hastings, who took the stage at the presentation’s conclusion. Hastings took the opportunity to note how pleased he is that Paolo Sorrentino’s “The Hand of God,” which Netflix produced, scooped top honors at Italy’s David di Donatello Awards, the country’s top film prizes, earlier this week.Netflix’s new Italian slate is headlined by a high-end English-language series adaptation of “The Leopard,” the classic Sicily-set novel by Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa.

Matt Blank, interim CEO of AMC Networks, said the company has “no plans” for ad-supported tiers of its family of targeted streaming services including Shudder, Acorn TV and AMC+.

A Netflix shareholder has sued the streamer for violating securities law after slowing subscriber growth led to a sharp decline in the company’s stock price.

Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorDisney Streaming Services, which operates the Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ and Star+ services globally, has tapped two tech veterans — Devika Chawla from Netflix and Arun Chandra — for senior roles.Chawla (above left) joins Disney Streaming next week as senior VP of lifecycle engineering, after a decade of building out Netflix’s global customer communication products and teams. Most recently, she served as director of engineering, messaging and contact, at Netflix.Chawla will lead Disney’s initiatives to “optimize customer journeys, interactions and retention” for Disney+, Hulu, ESPN+ and Star+.

Space Force has been cancelled by Netflix after two seasons.The streaming platform announced that the Steve Carell-led comedy series, which he co-created with The Office showrunner Greg Daniels, will not be returning for a third run of episodes.This comes just two and a half months after the release of the second season, which has received middling to negative reviews from critics.A parody of ex-president Donald Trump’s genuine desire to establish a Space Force as the sixth branch of the US military, Space Force centres on the everyday failings and absurd antics of General Mark R. Naird (Carell) and his team as they launch various space-related operations.Alongside Carell, the show starred John Malkovich, Ben Schwartz, Tawny Newsome, Jimmy O.

David Zaslav and Endeavor’s Ari Emanuel scored nine-figure compensation packages, a Day-Glo illustration of the lengths that board rooms go to reward the men (and it is exclusively men) at the top. Those gaudy figures came largely in the form of stock options, which means the take-home pay could shrink if the market takes a nosedive, but both men are still among the most richly remunerated in this or any industry.

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Brent Lang Executive Editor of Film and MediaNetflix has acquired “Bardo, False Chronicle of a Handful of Truths,” the new film from Oscar-winner Alejandro G. Iñárritu.The highly-anticipated film is currently in post-production, and is expected to wrap by fall.