Netflix Saves Us From How Many Ads Per Year!?

Netflix: everyone's fave way to binge watch shows. 

One thing you mightn't have thought very hard about is how many ads Netflix is actually saving us all from. 

This was calculated by multiplying the amount of time the average person streams Netflix on a daily basis by the average time ads are aired during a normal one hour broadcast. With Netflix subscribers spending an average of 1.5 hours a day streaming from the service, and an average hour of television having approximately 15 minutes and 30 seconds of ads, Netflix is saving its subscribers from over 130 hours of advertisements a year.

This benefit only appears to be getting more and more valuable as over the past five years, the amount of time network television spends advertising to us has increased to 25% of a normal broadcast.

Back in early 2015, it was revealed that television networks were speeding shows up 9-10% in order to stuff additional ad slots into the broadcast. With clever mechanics like this, it’s easy to see how the total time networks spend advertising can increase. But this also lends itself to a faster exodus to ad-free options like Netflix.

There was a scare a few months ago that Netflix was going to start testing ads but CEO Reed Hastings came back with a "no way, no how".

Just for fun, let’s put this time savings into perspective. Here’s what Netflix would have saved you over the last year:

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