Peter Rice Replaces Bela Bajaria as Netflix Chief Content Officer

Peter Rice has replaced Bela Bajaria as Netflix's Chief Content Officer in a move made by co-CEO Ted Sarandos. Rice, a former Disney and Fox executive, will take immediate charge of Netflix's entire film, television, unscripted, and live programming slate. He will start in 10 days.

Context of Bajaria’s tenure and departure

Bela Bajaria stepped down from her role as Chief Content Officer at Netflix. She is a 10-year Netflix veteran who originally joined in 2016 to oversee unscripted and local-language scripted series. Bajaria became Chief Content Officer in early 2023. Her departure had been rumored for months but was dismissed by Netflix. Rice’s name started making the rounds late last week before the announcement. Bajaria may not have been told of the change until very recently. She received a Variety award at MIPCOM in Cannes on Monday.

Layoffs and broader restructuring

The leadership change coincides with Netflix’s largest-ever layoff. The company cut roughly 1,000 jobs, representing about 6 percent of its total global workforce. These layoffs included film and TV executives. The TV studio group was hit particularly hard. The job cuts occurred amid mounting market pressure over slowing subscriber growth and shifting audience metrics. The sweeping layoffs and executive changes are part of Netflix's strategic reset amid fluctuating viewership growth. The restructuring may now run deeper and involve more executive changes than anticipated. Bajaria attended a town hall held by Head of Scripted, UCAN Jinny Howe on Wednesday afternoon. The Nobody Wants This Season 3 premiere capped a difficult day with approximately 1,000 employees laid off.

Industry pattern and Rice’s background

Rice’s appointment continues a trend of female content heads at major streamers being replaced by men. All involved the exit of a female executive: Bajaria at Netflix, Holland at Paramount+, and Jennifer Salke at Amazon. All were replaced by men. Rice ran Fox Searchlight during the time of Slumdog Millionaire and Little Miss Sunshine. At Disney, he was TV Chairman. Since his June 2022 exit from Disney, Rice has been producing movies, including the two 28 Years Later films and The Social Reckoning, which opened this past weekend. He will not need a learning curve for film oversight like Bajaria and Salke did. The immediate focus may be on the top film post, currently held by Dan Lin, who had been the subject of departure speculation for months. Besides the persistent rumor about ex-Warner Bros. Co-chiefs Michael de Luca and Pamela Abdy, no clear favorites for the top film post have emerged. That rumor could not be substantiated.

Statements and outlook

Ted Sarandos, co-CEO of Netflix, praised Bela Bajaria for leading enormous creative and operational changes. He stated that Peter Rice would help Netflix 'continue to scale and deliver members more of the stories they love'. Peter Rice said, 'Netflix has fundamentally changed the way stories are made, shared and experienced around the world'. At the Bloomberg Screentime summit in September, Ted Sarandos admitted that 'we’re not growing as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster'. Netflix remains highly profitable and continues to expand its revenue. Overall audience engagement has proven less steady in recent quarters. In September 2020, Ted Sarandos replaced Cindy Holland, an 18-year company veteran and Head of English-language series, with Bela Bajaria. One representative said of Rice, 'He knows how to read a script and make it better; That’s his secret sauce'. Another noted of the announcement, 'There were cheers in the hallways'.

Peter Rice will start in 10 days and may immediately focus on the top film post currently held by Dan Lin.