Netflix isn’t growing fast enough and is making redundancies

Netflix has remained independent – following the narrowly averted merger with Warner Bros, which subsequently merged with Paramount. The streaming giant is now making 1,000 employees redundant, equivalent to 6 per cent of its total workforce. This hasn’t happened since 2022. The announcement was made by Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters – who jointly hold the title of CEO at the company. The restructuring will affect all departments, right up to senior management: Eunice Kim, who had recently helped to redesign the international structure, is set to leave.

Netflix has remained independent and dominates the streaming market. But it has its problems. Subscribers are becoming less and less loyal – this is nothing new. The competition is fierce: from YouTube, which none of us would ever watch in the same way we watch TV – though not everyone shares this view. And now Skydance, which will bring together HBO Max and Paramount+ (acronyms we were slow to catch on to, having learnt of them after the US). It is little consolation to note that the competition is also moving towards staff cuts. Among the high-profile departures is that of Bela Bajaria, who had been at Netflix for ten years: her most recent role was head of content. In short, she was in charge of what we watch. It doesn’t matter which screen we watch it on; that was the revolution. No more TV in the living room, and perhaps another small one in the bedroom. All you need is a mobile screen and a subscription.

She is now being replaced by Peter Rice, who joins from Disney and will be responsible for all content across all regions where Netflix operates: scripted programmes, unscripted programmes (such as reality TV), films and live events. A reorganisation, but with what objectives? asks Joe Adalian in his newsletter entitled ‘Buffering’ (referring to the moment when a stream is interrupted and that annoying little icon appears indicating ‘loading in progress’).

The departure of Doug Belgrad, vice-president of the film division, does not bode well (experts say that cuts to creative departments do the most damage: we, as subscribers, can confirm this too). His boss, Dan Lin, is regarded as a ‘talent whisperer’ – someone who has the skills and the right way with words to connect with creative talent – something not all executives are capable of, of course. He worked with Guillermo del Toro on Frankenstein and with Greta Gerwig on Narnia: The Magician’s Nephew, due in cinemas next February, which will feature Led Zeppelin’s Stairway to Heaven on screen for the first time (the rights had never been granted to anyone before).

It’s a question of money. Netflix isn’t growing fast enough with its current content. Soon we’ll see fewer festival films and fewer risky ventures based solely on talent, which are difficult to justify financially. For subscribers, this isn’t good news.