Call it the six-year itch — amid a sliding stock price and slowing engagement growth, Ted Sarandos has made a change, replacing Chief Content Officer Bela Bajaria, a 10-year Netflix veteran, with Peter Rice. The Netflix co-CEO made a similar move in September 2020, when he replaced Head of English-language series Cindy Holland, an 18-year company veteran, with Bajaria.
Holland’s departure did come as a shock. Bajaria’s had been rumored for months but dismissed by Netflix even as Rice’s name started making the rounds late last week. Rumor is Bajaria may not have been told of the change until very recently, with some saying it may have been Monday when she received a Variety award at MIPCOM in Cannes. (She is also slated to receive an International Emmy award next month.)
Neither Sarandos nor Bajaria were at the Nobody Wants This Season 3 premiere Wednesday night. (They last attended together the Animals premiere two weeks ago.) That didn’t look too suspicious at the time as the event capped a difficult day at Netflix with some 1,000 employees laid off, including film and TV executives. Bajaria is said to have attended the town hall that Head of Scripted, UCAN Jinny Howe held Wednesday afternoon amid the layoffs, I hear, making her exit today feel abrupt and shocking to staffers.
“It’s gloom and doom,” one person said about the mood internally at Netflix where executives spent most of the day with their doors shut, I hear. “Everyone is freaking out.”
That is because, the Wednesday layoffs, the largest in Netflix history, proved to be just the first of multiple shocks to the system. The cuts were already expected to be followed by a reorg. The restructuring may now run deeper and involve more executive changes than anticipated. There were some hints of that in the layoffs yesterday, with the TV studio group hit particularly hard as agents and producers had been griping that the current setup didn’t make a lot of sense.
Things already had been tough internally amid the engagement challenges hurting Netflix’s stock as high-profile series had not performed to expectations and most returning shows have seen viewership declines season-to-season over the past year. Misses would draw harsh reaction from Bajaria, which I hear had been demoralizing to those on the receiving end. Eight TV executives have left the streamer to join rival Amazon MGM Studios over the past year, following Howe’s predecessor Peter Friedlander there.
With Rice starting in 10 days, the immediate focus may be on the top film post, held by Dan Lin who, like Bajaria, had been the subject of departure speculation for months.
Rice is a rare executive with high-level experience in both film and TV. He ran Fox Searchlight at the time of Slumdog Millionaire and Little Miss Sunshine and has been producing movies since his June 2022 exit from Disney where he was TV Chairman, including the two 28 Years Later films and The Social Reckoning, which opened this past weekend.
That means he will not need a learning curve the way TV executives like Bajaria and former Amazon MGM Studios head Jennifer Salke did when they added film oversight and can start making movie decisions right away.
Besides the persistent rumor about ex-Warner Bros. co-chiefs Michael de Luca and Pamela Abdy, which could not be substantiated, no clear favorites for the job have emerged, with a number of internal and external names bandied about, but, as with 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 with no streaming experience. Industry insiders do not see that as an issue.
“He knows how to read a script and make it better; That’s his secret sauce,” one rep said.
Still, there is one element of working at a streamer that no one is prepared for: volume. That is especially true for Netflix, the largest of them all with the most expansive global slate among platforms. The sheer number of titles is enough to make Rice’s head spin, one person noted.
That would be an argument for him not to make immediate top executive changes in television, where Howe is overseeing a massive portfolio, in order to keep the giant machine moving.
Another challenge Rice would face is making content for the masses. Netflix is known for catering to anyone with fare that would appeal 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. He did oversee a broadcast network, Fox, along with FX, during his time as CEO of Fox Entertainment Group, which could come in handy as Netflix is built on a similar programming strategy but mixed with prestige, HBO-caliber shows.
Rice is getting some goodwill from the Hollywood community as he taking on the Netflix job in his return to the executive ranks after four and a half years, with people calling him “smart and talented”, “a total pro” and “a gentleman.”
That would explain the reaction when news broke of his appointment Thursday afternoon.
“There were cheers in the hallways,” one rep said.