By Sam Boughedda
Netflix (NASDAQ:NFLX) is looking for an executive to head up the creation of its ad-supported tier service, The Wall Street Journal said Monday.
The report stated, citing people familiar with the matter, that the streaming giant has reportedly interviewed candidates outside of the company, with the chief growth officer of Comcast's (NASDAQ:CMCSA) advertising unit, Pooja Midha, said to have interviewed with Netflix "extensively" in the last few weeks.
However, Netflix is also considering several other candidates, such as Snap Inc 's (NYSE:SNAP) vice president of sales for the Americas, Peter Naylor.
Netflix, which was historically against an ad tier, is now looking to introduce ads to its service for the first time after posting a significant subscriber loss in the first quarter.
The WSJ said last month that Netflix has held talks with potential partners, such as Comcast and Alphabet's (NASDAQ:GOOGL) Google, about the ad technology and sales force it needs and is open to sharing advertising revenue with a partner that can help it enter the ad business.
One of Netflix's top concerns is reportedly how potential partners' data-privacy policies would affect their handling of subscriber information.
Netflix shares are down 3.75% Monday.