The Indian OTT market is firing up with some great competition among players like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar, Zee5, Sony Liv and many more. To come out on top of all, Netflix is making a move that is aimed at attracting unsubscribed users towards the video-streaming platform. It is hosting a two-day weekend offer period on December 5 and 6, where unsubscribed users will get free full access to Netflix’s entire content catalog.
The plan was first announced in October, but the company had not mentioned when the event was going to take place.
“At Netflix, we want to bring the most amazing stories from across the world to all fans of entertainment in India. It’s why we’re hosting StreamFest: an entire weekend (Dec. 5, 12.01 am -Dec. 6, 11.59 pm) — of free Netflix. So, anyone in India can watch all the blockbuster films, the biggest series, award-winning documentaries, and entertaining reality shows for two whole days,” Netflix announced on its blog.
To avail of this offer, users will have to first visit Netflix.com/StreamFest or download the Netflix app, and sign up with their name, email or phone number, and password. Once this process is completed, users can directly start streaming without interference from any payment gateways. You can also visit the website and set yourself a reminder to the offer weekend using your email or phone number.
But obviously, the company won’t give away everything to everyone for free. There are some terms and conditions for this offer. First, users will only get one stream per login in standard definition (SD) quality. This is to avoid multiple users streaming through only one registration. But who will do that if access is free for everyone?
That leads us to the second rule. Netflix will limit the number of StreamFest viewers during a particular time. So if you are trying to watch something during the StreamFest and a message such as “StreamFest is at capacity” appears, then you probably cannot access any content at that time. However, Netflix says it will notify when you can start streaming again.
Moreover, users can also use the same login to watch Netflix on any device such as smart TV, gaming console and iOS or Android device. StreamFest users will also be able to experience regular subscription-based features like creating profiles, set Parental Controls, browse Netflix in Hindi, add series or films to My List, watch with subtitles or dubs, or use Smart Downloads on mobile.
Greg Peters, COO and CPO at Netflix had earlier said during the company’s earnings conference call, “We think that giving everyone in a country access to Netflix for free for a weekend could be a great way to expose a bunch of new people to the amazing stories that we have, the service, how the service works and hopefully get a bunch of those folks to sign up.”
