Netflix has appointed Peter Rice as Chief Content Officer, with responsibility for its films, series and live events worldwide, effective October 26. He will succeed Bela Bajaria, who is departing after nearly 10 years with Netflix and most recently headed its global content team. Rice’s responsibilities will cover both scripted productions and unscripted programming across every region.
Rice will inherit a content operation whose expansion into live events and sports took place under Bajaria, according to Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos. Sarandos also credited Bajaria with substantially expanding unscripted programming while overseeing the company’s global film and series output. The leadership change therefore reaches beyond movies and television series to the newer programming categories Bajaria helped establish.
Rice most recently held the chairmanships of Walt Disney Television and General Entertainment at The Walt Disney Company. His responsibilities there encompassed more than 300 shows and annual television output totaling 4,000 hours. Among the businesses he oversaw were Hulu, ABC News and FX Networks, giving him responsibilities spanning streaming, news and entertainment television.
Programs overseen by Rice included Abbott Elementary, The Bear and Only Murders in the Building, alongside The Simpsons and American Idol. His remit also included major sports broadcasts, among them the NBA Finals and Super Bowl. Disney received 147 nominations for the Primetime Emmys in 2022, following 146 in 2021.
Earlier in his career, Rice served as president of 21st Century Fox and led Fox Networks Group as CEO. He also represented Fox as its lead executive on Hulu’s board and chaired the boards of National Geographic Partners and A&E Networks.
Rice’s film background includes running Fox Searchlight Pictures as president, where releases included Juno, Sideways and Slumdog Millionaire. As a production executive at Twentieth Century Fox, he worked with Danny Boyle on The Beach and Baz Luhrmann on Moulin Rouge. He also held a supervising creative role on the first X-Men film.
