Peter Rice named Netflix chief content officer as Bela Bajaria departs after a decade

Peter Rice, the former television chief at Disney and Fox, will become Netflix’s chief content officer on 26 October 2026, replacing Bela Bajaria after nearly 10 years at the company. Netflix announced the change on 15 October 2026.

Bajaria had led Netflix’s global content team, expanding its work in live events and sports while substantially growing its unscripted programming. Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s co-chief executive, credited her with that expansion and with overseeing the company’s global film and series output.

The change has put the company’s relationships with studios such as NBCU in focus, while prompting speculation about the streaming group’s next moves.

Rice arrives with a career shaped in the older power centres of Hollywood. He was most recently Chairman of Walt Disney Television and Chairman of General Entertainment for The Walt Disney Company. Before that, he was President of 21st Century Fox and chief executive of Fox Networks Group.

At Disney, Rice’s remit included ABC, FOX Broadcasting, Fox Sports, ABC News, ABC Studios, Disney Channel, Freeform, FX Networks, Hulu, National Geographic, Onyx Collective, Disney Television and Twentieth Century Fox Television. The portfolio encompassed more than 300 shows and 4,000 hours of television a year.

Disney received 147 Primetime Emmy nominations in 2022 and 146 in 2021 during Rice’s leadership.

Rice joined Disney in 2019 as its top television executive and was later axed during the Chapek regime. He had previously led Fox Searchlight Pictures as president from 2000 to 2009, overseeing titles including 'Slumdog Millionaire,' 'Juno,' 'Little Miss Sunshine' and 'Sideways.'

Born in the U.K., Rice is now 60 and has worked in Hollywood C-suites for 15 years. He has been semi-retired or in a holding pattern in recent years before Netflix recruited him.

His new job gives him oversight of Netflix’s global content organisation, spanning scripted and unscripted series, film, live events and more in every region.

In late September, Rice met Ynon Kreiz for a meal, according to a report in the New York Post’s Page Six. Kreiz had moved from the chief executive role at Mattel to become co-chief executive of Skydance with David Ellison, and had been trying to persuade Rice to take a Skydance board seat.

There is speculation that Bajaria was let go as a scapegoat for the company’s current growth squeeze. The available account does not establish why she left, or what direction Rice will set for Netflix’s content strategy.

Rice graduated from the University of Nottingham in 1989. He serves on the boards of the Motion Picture & Television Fund and the Edinburgh International Film Festival.