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Netflix shares edged up 0.5% on Wednesday after the company said its advertising business now reaches more than 190 million monthly active viewers worldwide.
The streaming giant shared the update as part of a broader look at its growing ad-supported business, which is now entering its third year. Netflix said it’s changing how it measures ad reach, shifting from counting account profiles to “monthly active viewers” (MAVs). This new metric counts anyone who watches at least one minute of ads per month, adjusted for the average number of people in a household.
The company said this approach gives a more realistic view of how many people actually see ads, since many households watch together and weren’t fully represented in past numbers.
Netflix also announced new ad features, including trials of interactive video ads in the U.S. and Canada. These ads let viewers engage directly with what they see on screen. The company plans to expand them globally by mid-2026.
Netflix is also improving how advertisers can target audiences by adding new demographic filters, such as education level, marital status, and household income. It’s extending its partnership with LiveRamp to support first-party data tools across ten countries.
Additionally, Netflix is experimenting with dynamic ad insertion for live events, starting with WWE Raw and SmackDown later this quarter. This feature will also be used for the upcoming NFL Christmas Gameday across six countries.
Netflix introduced its ad-supported subscription in late 2022 to give customers a cheaper option. Since then, it has built a base of thousands of advertisers and partnered with more than 50 ad measurement firms around the world.