Netflix Ousts Content Chief Bela Bajaria, Taps Ex-Disney Executive Peter Rice

Netflix has removed Bela Bajaria as its chief content officer after nearly a decade at the company, replacing her with Peter Rice, the former Disney and 21st Century Fox executive who has spent the past three years producing films independently, the streamer said Thursday. The change, effective Oct. 26, lands one day after Netflix confirmed layoffs affecting roughly 1,000 employees and puts a new executive in charge of the single largest content budget in the entertainment industry.

What happened

Co-CEO Ted Sarandos informed staff that Bajaria, who joined Netflix in 2016 and has served as chief content officer since January 2023, will depart the company. Rice will take over the global content organization, overseeing scripted and unscripted series, film and live events across every region Netflix operates in, according to reporting confirmed by multiple trade outlets. As of this writing, Netflix's own investor-relations site had not yet updated its leadership roster to reflect the change, and no corresponding disclosure had appeared among the company's SEC filings, underscoring how recent the announcement is. A formal 8-K disclosure of the change, which the Securities and Exchange Commission generally requires within four business days of an officer departure or appointment, had not been filed as of Friday morning.

The numbers

The leadership change follows a round of cuts announced Oct. 14 that eliminated about 1,000 jobs, roughly 6 percent of Netflix's workforce. Subscriber engagement, meanwhile, rose only about 2 percent in the first half of 2026 despite Bajaria's push into live programming, including partnerships with WWE and the NFL. Netflix shares were down more than 20 percent for the year as of Thursday and barely moved in after-hours trading following the announcement, according to market data cited alongside the news. The company is scheduled to report third-quarter results on Tuesday, Oct. 20, giving investors their first chance to question management directly about both moves.

How Netflix got here

Bajaria rose through Netflix's ranks after joining from Universal Television, taking charge of global television in 2020 and adding film to her portfolio when she was named chief content officer in 2023, succeeding the restructuring that pushed out Cindy Holland. Under her watch Netflix built out a slate that included "Bridgerton," "Squid Game," "Wednesday" and "Arcane," and she championed the company's expansion beyond scripted series into unscripted formats, live sports and televised events such as the Jake Paul-Mike Tyson boxing match and NFL Christmas Day games. That bet on live programming was meant to be a differentiator against rivals such as Disney+, Warner Bros. Discovery's Max and Amazon Prime Video, all of which have also been pouring money into sports rights and live events. That strategy has drawn mixed reviews internally and externally: engagement gains have been modest, and the company has lost a string of high-profile filmmakers in recent months, among them David Fincher, the Duffer brothers and Noah Baumbach. Rice, by contrast, built his reputation on theatrical filmmaking at Fox Searchlight Pictures, where he oversaw "Slumdog Millionaire," "Juno," "Little Miss Sunshine" and "Sideways" before rising to president of 21st Century Fox and chairman of Walt Disney Television following Disney's acquisition of Fox's entertainment assets. Disney ousted him in 2022; since then he has operated as an independent producer under a financing arrangement with A24, with credits including "Saturday Night," "Warfare" and the "28 Years Later" franchise, plus adaptations of "Elden Ring" and Stephen King's "Fairy Tale" in development, per The Hollywood Reporter's account of his career.

Who is affected

The shift touches every corner of Netflix's production pipeline. Studio executives, talent agencies and producers who built relationships with Bajaria's team over the past decade now face a transition to new leadership with a different creative sensibility, one more rooted in theatrical film than in the unscripted and live-event programming she prioritized. Netflix employees are absorbing the news just two days after the layoffs, adding a second jolt of uncertainty in a single week. Netflix's unscripted and live-sports production vendors, who had scaled up to meet Bajaria's programming push, now face uncertainty about whether that spending continues under new leadership. Shareholders, for their part, get a new data point heading into next week's earnings call about how the company plans to address flat engagement and a share price that has lagged for much of the year. And the wider film industry, including studios and financiers that compete with Netflix for theatrical talent, will be watching whether Rice's arrival signals a renewed Netflix appetite for the kind of awards-oriented theatrical releases that defined his career before he joined the streamer.

Reaction

In a note to staff, Sarandos thanked Bajaria for a decade of contributions and credited her with expanding Netflix's unscripted programming and launching its push into live events and sports.

"One of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry," Sarandos said of Rice in the memo announcing the move.

Rice, in his own statement, said Netflix "has fundamentally changed the way stories are made, shared and experienced around the world," signaling continuity rather than an overhaul of strategy even as he takes the reins. Neither Netflix nor Bajaria has issued a detailed public statement about her departure or her next move.

What happens next

Rice's appointment becomes effective Oct. 26, six days after Netflix's third-quarter earnings call, where executives are likely to face questions about the rationale for the change, the layoffs that preceded it and the company's engagement trends. Investors and producers alike will be watching for early signals of how Rice reshapes the content slate — whether he leans into theatrical releases given his Fox Searchlight pedigree, how he handles the live-sports commitments Bajaria built, and whether the shake-up slows or accelerates the recent run of creative departures. A formal regulatory filing disclosing the terms of the leadership change would typically follow in the coming days.