Netflix Hurries to Rewrite Its Narrative With Layoffs and a Sudden Firing
Plenty seems to be working for Netflix these days.The company remains, by far, the most-watched paid streaming service in the world, with more than 325 million subscribers.It accounts for far more television viewing time than any of its traditional entertainment competitors, including Disney, Amazon Prime Video or Skydance.
Its revenue is robust, and profits are plentiful.Yet on Wednesday, Netflix let go of roughly 1,000 employees, about 6 percent of its ranks and its biggest round of job cuts in four years.And on Thursday, it made an abrupt leadership change, pushing out Bela Bajaria, who oversaw all of the company’s TV series, movies, live events, sports and video podcasts, and replacing her with Peter Rice, a Fox and Disney veteran.Two intertwined factors helped drive the moves, which reverberated throughout Hollywood this week.
The company isn’t growing fast enough, as Ted Sarandos, the company’s co-chief executive, said recently.And Netflix’s stock price has plummeted more than 40 percent over the last year.“These are moves that Netflix has to make,” said Mike Proulx, vice president and research director at Forrester, a research and advisory firm.
“The company has to be acting in a more bold way, especially given what’s going on with its competition right now.”Netflix has seen the time spent by viewers stall as it struggles to find new global hits to replace blockbuster series like “Stranger Things,” which ended last year.YouTube, one of Netflix’s biggest competitors, has seen its share of television viewing time in the United States increase over the last year while Netflix’s has declined, according to Nielsen.In September, the streaming service had its worst showing at the Emmys in a decade, even though it spends more than three times as much on content as it did in 2016.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.
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