Netflix begins gentle subscriber cull

Netflix has begun to clean its database and is asking subscribers that haven’t been using the service to confirm whether they want to continue their subscription.

“The last thing we want is people paying for something they’re not using,” said Eddy Wu of the Netflix Product Innovation team in a gentle blog post entitled Helping members who haven’t been watching cancel.

Anyone who has not watched anything on Netflix for a year since they joined to confirm they want to keep their subscription.

If no reply is received the subscription will be automatically cancelled, though it will be possible to reactivate it at a later date.

The same will apply to anyone who has not watched anything for two years.

“These inactive accounts represent less than half of one percent of our overall member base, only a few hundred thousand, and are already factored into our financial guidance,” explained Wu.

Subscribers will start seeing the emails or in app notifications this week. Broadband TV News