Netflix: Streaming service fires content chief Bela Bajaria and film chief Dan Lin ahead of quarterly report

Content manager Bajaria: “No sacred cows”

Netflix must remain flexible, that’s Ted Sarandos’ mantra. “There are no sacred cows here,” Netflix co-CEO said in an interview in January. The film industry learned that the saying also applies to people last week when Netflix fired its long-time content director Bela Bajaria. Bajaria was regarded by many as the face of the realignment of the streamer to forge global series hits. Now it was announced that film director Dan Lin had also been fired at the weekend.

The bigger surprise, however, was clearly the expulsion of Bajaria. She was responsible for the content of the streaming giant for ten years, under her aegis successes such as "Squid Game", "Adolescence" or "KPop Demon Hunters" emerged. Bajaria was instrumental in making Netflix a global production machine, and under her leadership, the company created nearly two dozen new locations around the world. She also expanded the live division of the streamer, which was very successful in attracting subscribers.

Bajaria’s layoff crowned a week that some industry services describe as a “massacre of layoffs”: Six percent of Netflix’s total workforce, around a thousand employees, had to leave. Netflix is growing slower than Sarandos would like; The usage figures are also worrying. This is reflected in the share price, which was a year ago at over 120 dollars, but today is below 70 dollars. The pressure is particularly high these days, because on Tuesday the streamer wants to publish its quarterly figures.

However, Bajaria had apparently been assured until the last that her job was safe. On Wednesday morning, she held talks with fired employees and tried to motivate the remaining ones, industry media reports. She did not know that she would be sawn off herself in the afternoon. Bajaria is succeeded by former Disney and Fox manager Peter Rice.

Bajaria, Head of Content with Actor Will Ferrell and CEO Ted Sarandos: “Sacking Massacre”

Within Hollywood, many seem convinced that Bajaria was mainly used as a scapegoat for investors. “The blame is always on the content,” an insider told the industry service Variety. But you don’t lay off a thousand employees without there being a big business model problem. ‘

Sarandos must therefore hope that the restructuring will convince investors to take the quarterly figures favourably. Because so slowly, writes the industry service “Indiewire”, is at Netflix “no one left, you could fire”.