Bela Bajaria is out at Netflix amid layoffs. Is Peter Rice next?

Bela Bajaria is out as Netflix’s chief content officer after a decade at the streamer, Variety, Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter reported on October 15. Her reported exit comes during layoffs affecting around 1,000 Netflix employees, putting its top content role in focus as the company cuts jobs across its business.

Former Disney and Fox executive Peter Rice is expected to replace her, Variety reported, citing Puck. Netflix has not confirmed his appointment in the reported accounts, so the succession remains a reported expectation rather than an announced change in leadership.

What happened to Bela Bajaria at Netflix

Bajaria joined Netflix in 2016, initially overseeing unscripted television, according to Deadline. The Hollywood Reporter says she later led the company’s television operations, and Deadline dates her appointment as chief content officer to January 2023. Her departure therefore reaches beyond one programming team: it concerns the executive who held Netflix’s top content title.

Deadline reported that rumors of Bajaria’s departure had circulated for a couple of weeks and were denied internally. The outlet did not identify who made those denials. The three October 15 reports now say she is out, but they do not establish why she is leaving; the timing alongside layoffs does not establish that the cuts caused her exit.

How the Netflix layoffs fit in

Deadline and The Hollywood Reporter put the cuts at around 1,000 employees, or about 6% of Netflix’s workforce. Variety described this week’s layoffs as the company’s largest workforce reduction to date. Bajaria’s reported exit follows other senior departures during the restructuring, but the reports do not specify whether her departure was itself a layoff.

Variety reported that film vice president Doug Belgrad and film director Sheroum Kim were laid off. The Hollywood Reporter also named television executives Lisa Lang McMullen, James Oh, Carolina Garcia and Andrew McQuinn among those who exited in recent days. NewsJaws previously covered the departures of Netflix television executives and Belgrad’s exit as the cuts spread through the company.