Netflix ousts content chief Bela Bajaria amid mass layoffs and 23% fall in stocks, Disney's Peter Rice to replace her

Netflix has ousted Bela Bajaria from her position as chief content officer at the global streaming giant, replacing her veteran film and TV executive Peter Rice. Bela's removal comes amid a record slowdown in viewership at Netflix and a recent large-scale layoff in the company.

Bela Bajaria was credited with broadening Netflix’s entertainment offerings by expanding its unscripted portfolio. She was instrumental in striking a deal with the TKO Group Holdings Inc. that brought WWE’s weekly wrestling show, Raw, to the streaming service.

“Losing Bela Bajaria is a big change, but Peter Rice is very well regarded in the industry,” Alicia Reese, an analyst at Wedbush Securities, said by email. “To us, this is a step forward, or at least a shift in direction.”

Bela Bajaria's ouster also comes in a week that saw the streaming TV giant lay off some 1,000 workers, about 6% of the total workforce. Netflix co-Chief Executive Officer Ted Sarandos told Bloomberg News that the company isn’t growing as fast as he would like.

Peter Rice previously served as chairman of general entertainment at Walt Disney Co., and, before that, as president of 21st Century Fox. He assumes the new role on October 26, with a broad mandate, overseeing scripted and unscripted series, film and live events across all regions.

“Peter is one of the most effective at-scale operators in the entertainment industry. He understands what makes stories resonate, and he’s spent his career helping talent do the best work of their lives,” Ted Sarandos said in a statement Thursday.

The streaming giant has been facing a tough time this year. According to Bloomberg, recent shows at Netflix have seen their audiences decline in their second seasons. The year also saw a 10-year low for the streaming at the Emmys, and their stock has fallen by 23% since the start of 2026.

Ted Sarandos, speaking at the Bloomberg Screentime conference in Los Angeles last month, acknowledged that the company isn’t growing as fast as he would like. While the company has been expanding into live sports and podcasts, the vast majority of Netflix’s roughly $20 billion programming budget goes to films, TV shows and video games.

The streamer hopes that Peter Rice can arrest this fall, and also help Netflix improve its relations with Hollywood talent. His experience consolidating Fox’s entertainment assets with Disney suggests that Netflix may look at other acquisitions, such as NBCUniversal when it becomes available, after being outbid by Skydance Corp. for Warner Bros. Discovery Inc. earlier this year.

Abhimanyu Mathur is Deputy Editor, Entertainment at Hindustan Times. With almost 15 years of experience in writing about everything from films and TV shows to cricket matches and elections, he inhales and exhales pop culture and news. Currently, he watches movies and TV shows and talks to celebrities for a living, while occasionally writing about them as well. A journalism graduate of Delhi College of Arts and Commerce, Delhi University, Abhimanyu began his career with Hindustan Times at the age of 20, swapping classrooms for newsrooms at an early age.