As Netflix undergoes its biggest content leadership shake-up in years, co-CEO Ted Sarandos has a clear message: The streamer’s international strategy is working, it’s the U.S. slate that needs fixing. Speaking during Netflix’s third-quarter earnings call Tuesday, Sarandos defended the company’s content strategy as the appointment of former Disney executive Peter Rice to replace Bela Bajaria as chief content officer raises questions about the streamer’s future commissioning priorities. Differentiated, exclusive, ambitious, professionally produced series and films and live events.” He said the streamer pairs that “exclusive programming with kind of a broad offering of third-party programming, including second run titles.” He then said Netflix also looks “to new ways to bring third-party content onto the service as well to complement those originals.
Like we just did with TF1 in France, where you’re ingesting a full network of programming.” While the leadership shake-up has cast uncertainty over the company’s commissioning priorities, Netflix executives pointed to strong performance across Europe, Latin America and Asia, where local productions continue to drive engagement, subscriber growth and revenue. Our local titles from those regions are driving engagement and they’re driving business growth. And you can see how our business model works here,” said co-CEO Greg Peters on the call.
Sarandos acknowledged that the U.S. slate needs to deliver stronger results, particularly as American hits remain an important driver of engagement around the world. But he indicated that the company’s international content operation would not undergo a fundamental change under Rice. In the U.K., one of Netflix’s most established international production hubs, the shake-up has generated some anxiety, although local producers believe the British scripted operation, led by Anne Mensah, enjoys a great deal of autonomy, having delivered delivered a string of global hits including “Baby Reindeer” and “Adolescence.” “I have a sense they have real autonomy in the U.K.,” said one scripted producer who has worked with the local originals team.
With Netflix among the remaining major buyers of high-end unscripted programming, any slowdown in spending could have significant consequences for local producers. Still, producers expect any changes introduced by Rice to take time to filter through, particularly in scripted television, where projects are commissioned years in advance. Much of the next two to three years of programming is already planned, with productions such as “The Gentlemen” Season 3 unlikely to reach screens before 2028.
Beyond the uncertainty surrounding Netflix’s commissioning priorities, the earnings call highlighted another part of the streamer’s international strategy: its growing interest in partnerships with traditional broadcasters to expand its local programming offering. France, where Netflix is believed to have roughly 14 million subscribers, was mentioned during the call not as a showcase for its local originals (with the exception of Omar Sy’s hit heist show “Lupin”), but as an example of a distribution strategy that could be replicated elsewhere. Earlier this year, Netflix kicked off its distribution deal with leading commercial broadcaster TF1, giving subscribers access to the network’s linear and on-demand programming directly through the streaming platform.
Speaking about the company’s broader approach to licensing and partnerships, Peters said Netflix was looking for new ways to bring more programming to subscribers. And that means we do things like licensing. It also means we look for new creative partnerships like we did with TF1,” Peters said.
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