Netflix names former Disney TV chief Peter Rice content chief as Bela Bajaria exits
Netflix said Thursday that Peter Rice, the former chairman of Walt Disney Television, will become chief content officer on Oct. 26, replacing Bela Bajaria after nearly 10 years at the company. The shakeup comes days after Netflix cut about 1,000 jobs and days before its third-quarter earnings report on Tuesday.
The announcement: Rice will lead Netflix’s global content organization, overseeing scripted and unscripted series, film and live events across all regions, the company said. Co-CEO Ted Sarandos called Rice “one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry” and thanked Bajaria for “a decade of dedication, innovation, creativity and leadership.”
Who Rice is: Rice was most recently chairman of Walt Disney Television and chairman of general entertainment at Disney, where he oversaw outlets including ABC, FX Networks and Hulu, Netflix said. Earlier, he was president of Fox Searchlight Pictures, which released “Slumdog Millionaire” and “Juno.” After he was ousted by then-Disney CEO Bob Chapek in mid-2022, he became an independent producer and has since produced films including “Saturday Night” and “28 Years Later,” CNBC reported.
Bajaria’s exit: Bajaria joined Netflix in 2016 to help launch an unscripted division and later took the top creative role, overseeing the streamer’s $20 billion content budget and its push into live sports and events, including deals with WWE and the NFL, CNBC reported. Variety, citing multiple sources, reported that she learned of her fate Wednesday evening when she asked Sarandos directly; the trade publication also reported that her ouster angered many inside and outside the company. Bajaria declined to comment to Variety.
The backdrop: The change follows layoffs this week of about 1,000 employees, or 6% of Netflix’s workforce, its largest cuts since 2022, and comes as viewership has stagnated, CNBC reported. Netflix said in July that viewership rose just 2% in the first half of the year. BMO Capital Markets analyst Brian Pitz wrote that Bajaria’s sudden departure “likely signals to us that user engagement may have remained soft” in the third quarter, according to CNBC.
Why it matters now: Netflix reports third-quarter earnings on Tuesday. Variety reported that the hire has fed industry speculation that Netflix could again pursue a major studio or other big content assets, with NBCUniversal, which is set to be spun out from Comcast next year, seen as a logical target; Netflix has announced no such plan. Rice’s experience with the Fox and Disney combination is “relevant if Netflix chooses to go after another studio,” Wedbush analyst Alicia Reese wrote, CNBC reported.