Having lavished praise on incoming Netflix chief content officer Peter Rice, co-CEO Ted Sarandos is now expected to get down to business with hi
Having lavished praise on incoming Netflix chief content officer Peter Rice, co-CEO Ted Sarandos is now expected to get down to business with his shiny novel hire to try to change the content culture at the streamer and put an end to what has turned out to be its annus horribilis.
It has been a torrid 10 days at the world’s leading SVoD platform, with the biggest layoffs in the company’s history and a seismic senior executive shuffle capping off a year that has brought a failed merger attempt and a 44% stock plunge.
What has also unsettled Sarandos and co-CEO Greg Peters is the paltry-sounding 2% growth in global engagement in the first half of 2026 (based on a not-paltry-sounding 97 billion hours viewed). That, it turned out, was untenable for a pair of executives who regularly say they want to entertain the entire world and led to Netflix discontinuing its biannual What We Watched report in July.
With hindsight, that was mere tinkering. Last week chief content officer Bela Bajaria was ousted.
There had been rumblings about Bajaria for some months. “Ted had to cut some red meat off the bone as Wall Street has the knives out on the stock, which is in the dumps,” said a producer who has had regular dealings with Netflix. Bajaria, a straight-talking 10-year Netflix veteran, played a enormous role in building out the international local content strategy. “She could be brutally honest and got to where she was by being incredibly hard-working,” said one source who works in streaming.
Enter Rice, the elegant former chairman of Walt Disney Television, chairman of general entertainment for The Walt Disney Company, president of 21st Century Fox, CEO of Fox Networks Group, and president of what was then called Fox Searchlight.
What does this bode for the film culture at Netflix? The UK executive is clearly pointed, well-liked, brings “rare” broad experience, in the words of Sarandos in this week’s earnings call, and “understands talent relations”. That will be critical. David Fincher, Shawn Levy, Stranger Things creators the Duffer Brothers, and Noah Baumbach have not renewed their deals with the streamer, and there will be pressure on the novel chief content officer to amass a talent stable.
Not uncomplicated. “With Netflix taking criticism for lack of long-term engagement, movies are a harder job than series [to move the dial],” said one producer who has worked with Netflix. Bajaria was a TV person, not a film person, although she championed the service’s most-viewed film of all time KPop Demon Hunters, as well as the upcoming The Further Mis-Adventures Of Cliff Booth and Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew.
Bajaria worked first with legacy studio whiz Scott Stuber and his diamond-encrusted talent relationships and bloated budgets. Then came Dan Lin, who is leaving after less than three years and had the unenviable task of reining in spend and making the films more broadly appealing (read: amorphous and vanilla but, yes, cheaper). Neither executive secured Netflix the best picture Oscar Sarandos so covets, although watch this space – La Bola Negra is in the race this year.
The consensus in Hollywood is nobody goes to Netflix to watch the films and Sarandos wants to change that. Together with Peters, he went after – and lost – the Warner Bros studios business to bring in IP and raise the bar. Sarandos said this week that the company remains streaming-first; however, the push into more meaningful theatrical releases and box office reporting could set the tone of Rice’s tenure.
“Peter is probably a corporate upgrade on Bela,” said one industry executive. “He commands as much respect in the boardroom as he does with major talent. As Netflix broadens its sphere of activity in entertainment across gaming, verticals, live sports, etc, a seasoned all-rounder like him is the right creative figurehead.”
Who will Rice appoint to lead the film division? Everybody is talking about ex-Warner Bros animated duo Mike De Luca and Pam Abdy. They boast top-notch filmmaker relations and could thrive at a well-capitalised studio, although people question the rollercoaster nature of their last few years.
“I have always found Peter to be clever, creative, and thoughtful,” one producer told Screen. “My first thought was whether Ted’s plans are long-term, given Peter’s leadership track record. Might it be an opportunity for a succession plan?”
