A List Of Shows You Can’t Watch With Netflix’s New ‘Basic With Ads’ Subscription Tier

Netflix has launched its new ad-supported tier, “Basic with Ads” which offers a Netflix subscription with unskippable commercials in exchange for a cheaper price.

But precious minutes of your life lost to commercials is not the only thing you’ll be losing if you subscribe to that tier, as there are a number of shows that Netflix has that will not be viewable at all within that tier.

It’s not that Netflix is arbitrarily taking away content, it’s that the licensing deals they made with these shows will not allow for that. As a result, there are some pretty major series on here, many not Netflix originals, but a few are some of Netflix’s biggest hits.

Here’s the list as it stands right now, though more may be added in time as they’re found:

• House of Cards
• Arrested Development
• Peaky Blinders
• New Girl
• The Magicians
• The Last Kingdom
• The Sinner
• Friday Night Lights
• Good Girls
• Queen of the South
• The Good Place

It’s an awkward situation for Netflix, who has previously said 5-10% of its content would not be available in the ad-tier plan due to licensing. Many of those deals were made back when Netflix never thought they would ever have ads in the first place, so it probably didn’t seem like much of a big deal over time. But as competitors introduce their own ad-infused plans and Netflix’s growth slowed, they changed their tune. Now it’s $6.99 a month for the plan which gives out 4-5 minutes of ads per hour, less than broadcast TV certainly, but a lot more than zero. But now you are missing some pretty great series as well. In that incomplete list alone, Peaky Blinders, Arrested Development, Friday Night Lights, New Girl and The Good Place are some of the best series on the entire service, I would argue.

It seems likely that Netflix will probably lose the rights to many of those series a few years from now as deals expire and they’re resold elsewhere or pulled back to their original owners. It’s easy to see say, The Good Place heading to Peacock, or something.

We will see if this new ad plan boosts subscriber totals during Netflix’s next earnings report. I suppose it can’t hurt, though people may be in for a shock as they browse and find themselves locked out of a lot of major titles.

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