Netflix Hands Peter Rice the Job Bela Bajaria Built

Netflix is replacing chief content officer Bela Bajaria after nearly 10 years, naming former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice to the job effective October 26. The change landed on October 15, one day after the company cut about 1,000 jobs, or 6 percent of its staff.

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos told staff she is leaving and that Rice will run the global slate. The hire follows a failed bid for Warner Bros. Discovery, a year of slowing watch time, and a run of creators who left for studios that still put movies in theaters.

Bajaria Leaves After a Decade of Global Hits

The Peter Rice as chief content officer posting is dated 15 October 2026. It says Bajaria is leaving after nearly 10 years, most recently leading the global content team, and that Rice will oversee scripted and unscripted series, film, live events and more across all regions.

Bajaria joined in 2016 to build unscripted, licensing and co-productions, after a run as president of Universal Television. She became head of global in 2020 when Cindy Holland left, and chief content officer in January 2023. The titles tied to her tenure include Squid Game, Bridgerton, Stranger Things, Wednesday and KPop Demon Hunters, plus the live push into Christmas NFL games, WWE and a Jake Paul-Mike Tyson fight.

I want to thank Bela for a decade of dedication, innovation, creativity and leadership. She led enormous changes at Netflix. She helped broaden our content offering to include the large-scale expansion of unscripted programming and the launches of live events and sports, in addition to crafting and running a world-class, global slate of films and series.

Ted Sarandos, co-CEO, Netflix announcement

In a staff note the same day, Sarandos called it a phenomenal decade and said Bajaria had hired people and let them decide. He also said he wants the slate taken to the next level, “especially in UCAN,” the United States and Canada, “where we have an outsize impact in creating big, buzzy hits that our members love.” Rumors of an ouster had been moving for days. She is leaving at once; Rice does not sit in the chair until October 26.

The Warner Bid Netflix Could Not Close

Late last year Netflix looked close on an $82.7 billion purchase of Warner Bros. studio and streaming assets. Paramount Skydance won the company instead, closing a $111 billion deal in early October. Netflix never got the library, the lot, or the theatrical machine it tried to buy. It is now hiring a man who used to run that kind of machine from the other side of town.

Shares closed at $72.61 on October 15, about 42 percent below the 52-week high of $124.86. They had finished at $70.57 on October 14, the layoff day. The 52-week low sits at $65.08. Profit is not the problem. Membership is not the problem either. The problem Sarandos keeps naming is speed: hits, hours, and a North American slate that no longer prints the shows that defined the last decade.

THE WEEK THE JOB CHANGED

1. October 14, 2026: Sarandos and co-CEO Greg Peters tell staff the company is cutting about 1,000 jobs, 6 percent of the workforce, with the bulk in tech, product, legal and HR, the largest reduction since 2022.
2. October 15, 2026: Sarandos tells staff Bajaria is leaving and that Rice joins as chief content officer the following week. Film VP Doug Belgrad is among the content names already out, with TV executives Lisa Lang McMullen, James Oh, Carolina Garcia and Andrew McQuinn also gone in recent days.
3. October 20, 2026: Netflix is due to report third-quarter results after the close.
4. October 21, 2026: Sarandos and Peters host a companywide town hall on the week’s changes.
5. October 26, 2026: Rice starts. Bajaria’s chair will have been empty for 11 days.

Sarandos wrote that it had been “an eventful series of days” and that “change is what we do at Netflix.” Reed Hastings, the founder, has long described the company as a sports team, not a family. In August he said that if you call it a championship roster, people understand why coaches make changes. Bajaria’s exit is that doctrine applied at the top of content, a day after the roster was already cut.

Watch Hours Grew 2 Percent in the First Half

The view hours grew 2 percent line in the Q2 2026 shareholder letter is the quiet number behind the loud week. Hours were up 2 percent in the first half against 1.5 percent growth in 2025, an extra 1.5 billion hours, even with the Winter Olympics and the World Cup in the market. Revenue still rose. The slope is what Wall Street has been punishing.

THE Q2 2026 SNAPSHOT

On the July earnings call, management said live should take about 5 percent of the content budget this year and about 1 percent of view hours, while six of the top 10 new-member signup days over five years came from live events. Live is a signup tool. It is not the hours engine. Film, series and games still eat most of a content bill around $20 billion. Q3 revenue is guided to $12.86 billion, up 11.7 percent, the slowest year-on-year rise since late 2023.

At Bloomberg Screentime on September 30, Sarandos said, “Overall, we’re not growing as fast as I want us to, and we’re working on making that move faster.” Nielsen’s July split of U.S. television streaming time put YouTube at 14.2 percent and Netflix at 7.8 percent. Free, user-uploaded video does not carry a $20 billion slate. That gap is the job Rice is being hired to work, not a mystery hiding behind the layoff memo.

What Sarandos Wants From the U.S. Slate

Sarandos did not ask the new chief content officer for more Korean game shows or more Bridgerton. He asked for big, buzzy hits in the United States and Canada. That sentence in the staff memo is the assignment. International titles still travel. They are no longer covering a stall in the market that sets the share price and the culture.

Stranger Things ended last year. Outer Banks is winding down. Emily in Paris ends this year. The Witcher and The Lincoln Lawyer are set to wrap after their next seasons. Netflix’s own figures showed Avatar: The Last Airbender falling from 21.2 million views in season 1 to 8.7 million in season 2, a 59 percent drop. Second-season fade is normal; the complaint inside the building is that too few new English-language shows have replaced the ones that used to do that work.

The Q2 letter pointed to Harlan Coben’s I Will Find You as the most viewed new original series debut of 2026. That is a solid thriller. It is not a Wednesday-level event. Bajaria’s last years also built podcasts, creator deals and games, then closed the Hollywood studio Night School and a Helsinki games shop in August. The live and unscripted expansion she is praised for in the goodbye note is the same slate now being asked to do more in UCAN with fewer people around it.

4,000 Hours a Year, Until Disney Cut Him Loose

Rice’s last full-time job was chairman of Walt Disney Television and chairman of general entertainment. The Netflix bio says he oversaw ABC, Fox Broadcasting, Fox Sports, ABC News, ABC Studios, Disney Channel, Freeform, FX, Hulu, National Geographic and Twentieth Century Fox Television, more than 300 shows and 4,000 hours of television a year. The stack under him included The Simpsons, Modern Family, This Is Us, The Bear, Abbott Elementary, Shogun and Only Murders in the Building, plus the Super Bowl, the NBA Finals and the FIFA World Cup final. Disney took 147 Primetime Emmy nominations in 2022 and 146 in 2021 while he was in the chair.

He started as a summer intern at Rupert Murdoch’s movie studio in 1987, ran Fox Searchlight (Slumdog Millionaire, Juno, Little Miss Sunshine, Sideways), and became president of 21st Century Fox and CEO of Fox Networks Group before Disney bought the Fox entertainment assets in 2019. Hollywood treated him as a possible Disney chief executive. Bob Chapek fired him in June 2022, telling him he was not a good fit, in a meeting that lasted less than 10 minutes. Dana Walden, his deputy, took the job and still holds studio power.

That firing is the hidden credential. Netflix is not hiring a streaming native. It is hiring the operator Disney discarded for running a fief, a man whose record is volume, talent relationships and a Searchlight eye for films that can live in theaters. Since 2022 he has produced 28 Years Later, Saturday Night and The Social Reckoning, which opened on October 9, with Elden Ring still ahead. Sarandos called him “one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry” and said his talent relationships are “exceptionally strong.”

Netflix has fundamentally changed the way stories are made, shared and experienced around the world. They’ve shown again and again that they’re willing to take chances on distinctive voices and fresh ideas, and I’m excited to work with the team to help bring even more great stories to members everywhere.

Peter Rice, incoming chief content officer, Netflix announcement

Creators Walked Toward Studios That Still Put Films in Theaters

Matt and Ross Duffer, the Stranger Things creators, announced a four-year exclusive Paramount deal in August 2025 and moved in April 2026. Shawn Levy, who produced the series through 21 Laps, took a deal at Disney’s 20th Television and is finishing Star Wars: Starfighter. Noah Baumbach went to Warner Bros.’ Clockwork. David Fincher did not renew. Netflix kept the Stranger Things rights. It lost the people who knew how to make the next one feel like a movie.

WHO LEFT THE OVERALL DEAL

• The Duffer Brothers: Four-year exclusive at Paramount, announced August 2025, effective April 2026, after a decade at Netflix, because they wanted tentpole theatrical films.
• Shawn Levy: Disney’s 20th Television, with Star Wars work ahead; 21 Laps still has the hockey drama Sticks at Netflix.
• Noah Baumbach: Warner Bros.’ Clockwork, off a Netflix film run.
• David Fincher: Did not renew; no new home announced.

Sarandos told an interviewer in early October that the Duffers “did not want to make more TV shows right now” and that he encouraged them to go make tentpoles at 40 rather than wait until 60. Matt Duffer put it more sharply: “The biggest draw to us was just to be able to do something theatrical, which is not something Netflix does.” Levy’s conflict was calendar math. An overall deal with a director shooting Star Wars for Disney could not hold.

Netflix is now testing the thing those creators left to find. It is reporting box office figures on Netflix films for the first time this weekend on the awards play La Bola Negra, which carries a 45-day theatrical window. Bajaria’s own animation hit is already on that path: the company is sending KPop Demon Hunters 2 to theaters first. Rice inherits a streamer that still will not run a traditional studio, trying to keep the next Duffers from walking, with a Searchlight producer in the content chair instead of a lot of its own.

Rice Starts October 26 With the Olympics Still Attached

On July 23, 2025, LA28 named Rice head of ceremonies and content for the Los Angeles Olympic and Paralympic Games, the first major Hollywood executive in that ceremonies role. He is to shape opening and closing shows at the Coliseum and SoFi Stadium, with the Olympic opening set for July 14, 2028. After the Netflix news, LA28 chair Casey Wasserman said Rice would stay on as executive producer.

WHAT WE KNOW

• The chair: Rice leads global content from October 26, including series, film and live events in every region.
• The Olympics: Wasserman said Rice remains executive producer of the LA28 ceremonies and called Netflix fortunate to have him.
• The town hall: Sarandos and Peters will take staff questions on October 21, the day after Q3 earnings.

WHAT IS UNCONFIRMED

• Dan Lin: The film chairman was not in the October 14 cut; some accounts say his job now sits with Rice. Netflix has not said so.
• How Bajaria learned: One account says she may have heard only around a Monday award date in Cannes. The company has not described the sequence.
• How much theatrical: La Bola Negra’s 45-day window is a test, not a stated new rule for the slate Rice will run.

Rice will be in the building on October 26 with a live-sports calendar he did not build, a UCAN hit list Sarandos has already called out, and a set of overall deals that have already walked. Bajaria spent 10 years turning a licensing shop into a global slate. The next job is to make that slate feel expensive again in the country that still sets the price of the stock.