Peter Rice, previously chairman of Walt Disney Television, has been appointed to lead content operations at Netflix. A disclosure from the company on Thursday confirmed the decision.

Oversight of the company's worldwide content portfolio — spanning scripted and unscripted series, feature films, and live events — is set to fall under Rice's direction.

Rice's appointment follows the departure of Bela Bajaria, who took on the position at the start of 2023 and is set to leave the company after spending close to a decade on its staff. In a prepared statement, Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos expressed gratitude to Bajaria for ten years of contributions spanning commitment, creative vision, and organisational leadership.

Prior to joining Netflix, Rice held portfolio responsibility at Disney spanning ABC, FX, Hulu, National Geographic, and Disney Channel — a breadth of oversight that Netflix cited when announcing his appointment. Prior to that role, his position at 21st Century Fox had been that of president. Under his leadership, Fox Searchlight Pictures brought both Slumdog Millionaire and Juno to audiences worldwide.

Rice received a degree from the University of Nottingham at the close of the 1989 academic year. His departure from Disney came in 2022, following a decision by Bob Chapek — who held the chief executive role at the time — to end his position there. Credits attributed to Rice after that point include the films Saturday Night and 28 Years Later, according to news reports. Among his current projects are Alex Garland's Elden Ring adaptation and the opening and closing ceremonies tied to the 2028 Los Angeles Olympic Games. Over the course of a single year, the tally of performances reached upward of 300.

In a written statement, Rice described Netflix as having reshaped how stories are produced, distributed, and consumed on a global scale. In a separate internal note to employees, Sarandos outlined his view that an opening existed to push the content portfolio further forward.

Sarandos, in that memo, drew particular attention to the US and Canada, noting that the shift represented a substantial departure from the norm in a year already marked by considerable upheaval. The remarks came one day after Netflix disclosed plans to reduce its workforce by around 6%, a figure translating to approximately 1,000 positions. The memo, bearing the names of Sarandos and co-chief executive Greg Peters, was obtained by a television news outlet.

Redundancies are concentrated within the product, technology, legal, and HR divisions. No reductions on that scale had been recorded since 2022. A television network had circulated reports of forthcoming job cuts earlier that month.

In a joint statement, Sarandos and Peters described underlying operations as healthy and expanding, with the company positioned to meet its annual targets. At a Bloomberg conference the previous month, Sarandos told attendees that Netflix's growth rate had fallen short of his targets. Guidance issued to investors that month pointed toward a third-quarter performance below earlier expectations.

A Warner Bros. acquisition attempt by Netflix ended without success that February. Warner Bros. Discovery's studio and streaming operations are set to be folded into the combined Paramount-Skydance entity. Third-quarter figures from Netflix are scheduled for release on Tuesday.