Netflix Replaces Its Content Chief, and Some Staff Hear It From the Press

Netflix has replaced its chief content officer, Bela Bajaria, with Peter Rice. Some staff learned of her exit from the press before the company told them internally, Deadline reported.

The chief content officer decides what series, films and live events the streaming service makes and buys. Bajaria had spent 10 years at Netflix, having joined in 2016. Rice will take over the global content team, and his remit includes scripted and unscripted series, film and live events, according to Netflix's announcement from 16 October.

Those changes were discussed at a staff town hall on Wednesday, 21 October, which followed the company's earnings call the day before. Rice was not at the town hall. He officially starts next week. On Tuesday's earnings call, co-chief executive Ted Sarandos said Rice understands talent relations, meaning how a studio works with the writers, actors and directors who make its shows.

Rice's past jobs include president of Fox Searchlight Pictures, chief executive of Fox Networks Group and chairman of Walt Disney Television. He also sat on the board of Hulu. From 2019 until 2022, he signed off on greenlights, the approvals that start a show's production, for Hulu series including Only Murders in the Building, Dopesick, The Dropout and The Great.

Netflix also ousted Dan Lin, its head of film, in the same shake-up.

The shake-up came alongside job cuts. Netflix laid off about 1,000 employees, roughly 6% of its staff, according to Deadline's October 20 report. At the town hall, co-chief executive Greg Peters indicated that further job cuts were over for the foreseeable future. Earlier this year, Peters had described layoffs as a hard tradeoff for the company's long-term growth.

The company's numbers were stronger on paper. In its third-quarter letter to shareholders, Netflix reported operating income of $4.5 billion for July to September, up 37% from a year earlier. Its operating margin, the share of revenue left after the costs of running the business, was 34.6%, compared with 28.2% in the third quarter of 2025. Viewing, by contrast, grew just 2% in the first half of 2026, Yahoo Finance reported.

For the people who make Netflix shows, the next visible step is the new chief's first week in the job. For viewers, the slate of titles Rice inherits, and the ones he chooses next, will shape what appears on the service.