Call it the six-year itch. Amid a falling stock price and slow-growing participation, Ted Sarandos has made a shake-up, replacing Bela Bajaria, Netflix’s veteran chief content officer of 10 years, with Peter Rice. The Netflix co-CEO made a similar move in September 2020, when he replaced Cindy Holland, the company’s 18-year veteran of English language series, with Bajaria.
Holland’s departure came as a shock. Bajaria had been rumored for months, but Netflix shot it down, while Rice’s name started floating around late last week. Rumor has it that Bajaria may not have been told about the change until recently, some say as early as Monday, when he received the Variety Award at MIPCOM in Cannes. (He is also expected to receive an International Emmy next month.)
Neither Sarandos nor Bajaria were there no one wants this Season 3 premieres Wednesday night. (They last attended together Animal The premiere took place two weeks earlier.) At the time it didn’t seem too suspicious as the event capped a difficult day at Netflix, in which nearly 1,000 employees, including film and TV executives, were laid off. Bajaria is said to have attended a town hall held by the head of Scripted, UCAN Ginny Howe, amid the layoffs on Wednesday afternoon, I’ve heard, making his exit today seeming sudden and shocking to staff.
“It’s frustrating and devastating,” one person said of the internal mood at Netflix, where executives spent most of the day with their doors closed, as I’ve heard. “Everyone is panicking.”
That’s because Wednesday’s layoffs, the largest in Netflix history, proved to be the first of many shocks to the system. Restructuring following the cuts was already expected. The restructuring may now run deeper and involve more executive changes than anticipated. There were some signs of this in yesterday’s layoffs, with TV studio groups being hit particularly hard as agents and producers grew frustrated that the current setup didn’t make much sense.
Things were already difficult internally amid engagement challenges, which hurt Netflix’s stock as high-profile series underperformed expectations and most returning shows have seen season-over-season viewership declines over the past year. Would get a harsh response from Mrs. Bajaria, which I heard was demoralizing for people on the receiving end. Following Howey’s predecessor Peter Friedlander, eight TV executives have left the streamer in the past year to join rival Amazon MGM Studios.
With Rice starting in 10 days, the immediate focus may be on the top film position, which is held by Dan Lynn, who, like Bajaria, was the subject of departure speculation for months.
Rice is a rare executive with high-level experience in both film and TV. That time he ran Fox Searchlight Slumdog Millionaire And little Miss Sunshine and has been producing films since his June 2022 exit from Disney, where he was TV chairman, including both after 28 years movies and social calculation, Which opened last weekend.
That means he won’t need to learn like TV executives like Bajaria and former Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke did when they added film oversight and can start making film-related decisions right away.
Apart from a persistent rumor about ex-Warner Bros. co-heads Michael De Luca and Pamela Abedi, which could not be confirmed, no clear favorite has emerged for the job, several internal and external names have surfaced, but like Bajaria, there is enough smoke pointing to a pending fire.
While Rice may be well-versed in both film and TV, he comes to Netflix without any streaming experience. Industry insiders do not consider this an issue.
A representative said, “He knows how to read a script and make it better; that’s his secret story.”
Still, there’s one element of working on a streamer that no one is prepared for: volume. This is especially true for Netflix, which is the largest of them with the widest global slate among the platforms. The sheer number of titles was enough to make Rice’s head spin, one person said.
This would be an argument for him not to make immediate top executive changes in television, where Howe is overseeing a huge portfolio, to keep the huge machine running.
Another challenge Rice faces is creating content for the public. Netflix is known for serving up fare that appeals to any part of the country – and the world – and any demographic. Rice is known for betting on quality in both his film and TV endeavors. During his tenure as CEO of Fox Entertainment Group, he oversaw FX as well as Fox, a broadcast network, which may come in handy as Netflix is built on a similar programming strategy, but with prestige, HBO-caliber shows mixed in.
Rice is getting some goodwill from the Hollywood community as he takes the Netflix job to return to the executive ranks after four and a half years, with people calling him “smart and talented,” “the consummate professional” and “a gentleman.”
This will make it clear what was the reaction when the news of his appointment came on Thursday afternoon.
“There were cheers in the hallways,” said a representative.