Netflix is ​​interviewing multiple external candidates for a new senior position overseeing the ad-supported level

The company also considered several other candidates, including Peter Naylor,

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They said the vice president of sales for the Americas and a former CEO of Hulu.

The CEO that the streaming company taps for the role will face an urgent task as Netflix tries to deliver ads to its service for the first time. The company said in April that It was exploring offering a low priced version that supports ads It posted its first quarterly subscription loss in more than a decade.

Netflix Have ongoing discussions with potential partnersincluding Comcast and its unit NBCUniversal and

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The Wall Street Journal reported last month that Google, about the advertising technology and sales force it needs.

Netflix, among other things, has considered creating an ad-supported option for each of the three service levels, which offers varying degrees of picture quality and the number of screens that can be used simultaneously, people familiar with those discussions said. One person said the company was open to sharing advertising revenue with a partner who would help it enter the advertising space.

“We are still in the early days of deciding how to launch an ad-supported option at a lower price and no decisions have been made,” a Netflix spokeswoman said.

Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos said last month that the company Wanted easy entry into the advertising market It will build on its business from there. He also said that Netflix was looking to create an ad experience that was less annoying for viewers than traditional TV ads. Executives want to create an ad-supported layer in which existing subscribers can sign up and not cause subscribers to leave Netflix, people familiar with internal discussions said. One person said that the company hopes to attract top advertisers as a high-quality place to buy ads because of the size of its subscriber base and how engaged viewers are on the platform.

People said that one of the main concerns raised by Netflix is ​​how potential partners’ data privacy policies will affect their handling of subscriber information.

Partnership with Comcast will be a milestone in sometimes contentious relationship Between Netflix and the cable giant. Netflix in 2014 picked a fight with Comcast,

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And the

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Accusing them of slowing down her films and TV shows to gain leverage in a price dispute.

Three years later, the company I gave up fighting After making deals with broadband service providers to pay for bandwidth on their networks.

Netflix has looked closely at

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Hulu has been held up as a model for how the streaming service can generate more revenue from subscribers who are on ad-supported tiers, people familiar with the Netflix discussions said.

MoffettNathanson LLC analysts estimate that Netflix could generate $1.2 billion in advertising revenue in the United States by 2025. They said the company has the potential to expand this business into international markets.

Joe Flint contributed to this article.

write to Sarah Krouse at [email protected]