Netflix’s Basic With Ads tier launched today, slashing the price of a subscription to the service for anyone willing to watch some commercials, but—as we heard a month ago when the new cheaper tier was first detailed—there’s a second catch added to include ads: Not all shows on regular Netflix are available in Basic With Ads. The problem is licensing restrictions, which makes sense for an ad-free thing that’s now becoming an item with some ads, and Netflix COO Greg Peters said in October that 90-95 percent of the library would still be available. 02:01 Tyler James Williams Talks ‘Abbott Elementary’ and ‘Everybody Hates Chris’ Yesterday at 13:39 But now we have some specific titles that are not available in Basic With Ads and it is a rough list. According to Deadline, Netflix’s House Of Cards and Arrested Development are not available on Basic With Ads, as they are not wholly owned by Netflix (unlike the latest Netflix Originals), and the lower tier is also missing some shows that weren’t made by Netflix, but are linked to the service since they’ve been available there for a long time. Shows like Peaky Blinders, New Girl, The Magicians, Friday Night Lights, The Good Place and “various movies from various studios.” These things are still visible in the menus, but will have a lock icon on the thumbnail if you don’t have access. Apart from House Of Cards and Arrested Development, which are a bit odd, a lot of it probably could have been predicted. Some of these are high-profile shows with streaming rights, and their Netflix offerings probably go way back, but also shows like Peaky Blinders aren’t available anywhere else. If you can only afford the Basic With Ads tier and really want to watch New Girl, you’re out of luck. Netflix said when it first announced these details that it would work to move these shows to the cheaper tier “over time,” so hopefully this is just an issue for early adopters. Someday, when the ad tier has proven so popular that Netflix starts putting ads in the pricey 4K UHD tier just for fun, we’ll think it was silly to miss some shows.
