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Netflix is planning another subscription price increase. VOD subscriptions will increase first in the USA, although the company’s authorities want to wait until the screenwriters’ strike ends.

Netflix plans to increase subscription prices for films and series. The company is one of the last VOD providers that has not increased prices in the last year. However, this is about to change soon.

Netflix will increase subscription prices

The latest information was provided by anonymous sources to the Wall Street Journal. According to informants, the company plans to increase all subscriptions without advertising, i.e. Standard and Premium options (the Basic subscription was withdrawn in 2023).

The increases will start in the USA and Canada, but in accordance with the company’s strategy, they will also be introduced in other regions one by one. Currently, it is not known by what amount the company intends to increase prices. With the last increase in early 2022, prices ended by $1 to $2, depending on the plan. Currently, Netflix offers the Standard service for $15.49/month and Premium for $19.99/month. The subscription with ads is $6.99/month.

The exact schedule of price increases is also a secret. “WSJ” sources believe that the company plans to wait out the turmoil related to the Hollywood actors’ strike and the recently ended screenwriters’ strike. Months of protests stopped a huge number of productions – the simultaneous lack of new content and an increase in the price of the service could cause many customers to abandon the service.

The end of the screenwriters’ strike – the industry says “no” to AI

As we wrote in Wprost.pl, the strike of the Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) ended in the last days of September. The strike that started in May blocked most film and TV series productions for almost half a year. However, it ended after reaching a preliminary agreement with film studios.

One of the main protesting groups were screenwriters who wanted to negotiate better wages, but were also deeply concerned about the dynamic development of generative artificial intelligence. According to the parties’ arrangements, the productions being prepared will not be able to use AI-generated content, including preliminary scripts that would be corrected by a human scriptwriter.

It also works the other way round, because AI will not be able to correct or modify scenes already written by humans. Moreover, artificial intelligence will not be able to learn and train on the scriptwriters’ creations (which could mean violating their copyrights).