Small Screen: Netflix Promotes Bela Bajaria, NBCU Streamlines Content Creation

Retta - Axelle / Bauer-Griffin

Broadcast: NBC has given a pilot order to Murder By The Book, a mystery crime drama starring comedian Retta. Retta will play an Instagram-famous book reviewer who becomes an “unlikely detective,” investigating the secrets behind a small town by the sea. Murder By The Book reunites Jenna Bans, Bill Krebs, and Retta, all of whom worked on NBC’s hit comedy Good Girls. Retta has also played Donna Meagle on Parks and Recreation and appeared on Bravo’s Girlfriend’s Guide to Divorce. The pilot’s date has yet to be announced.

ABC has ordered a pilot for the single-camera comedy Public Defenders, written by Eddie Quintana. Quintana’s notable writing credits include ABC’s Grace, AppleTV+’s Acapulco, and Fox’s Duncanville. He is also a producer for ABC’s upcoming Not Dead Yet, starring Gina Rodriguez. Public Defenders will follow four new lawyers as they navigate the world of public defense and foster a growing friendship. The series is ABC’s first comedy pilot of the 2023 cycle.

Naveen Andrews - Axelle/Bauer-Griffin

Streaming: Naveen Andrews is set to star in The Pradeeps of Pittsburgh on Amazon’s Freevee streaming service. Andrews, who was nominated for a Golden Globe and a Primetime Emmy for his performance as Sayid Jarrah in Lost, will play the father of an immigrant family from India as they clash with an antagonistic neighboring family. Sindhu Vee (Starstruck), Megan Hilty (Smash) and Ethan Suplee (My Name Is Earl) will also appear. The Pradeeps takes a unique approach to storytelling, using occasionally contradictory flashbacks from an interrogation room to guide viewers down a complex story with startling twists. Executive producer Vijal Patel (Black-ish) says of the show, “This show is from a very personal place and explores the many facets of the immigrant struggle.” 

Jennifer moon

Industry: Netflix has promoted former Head of Global TV Bela Bajaria to Chief Content Officer. Bajaria, who previously served as president of Universal Television, joined Netflix in 2016 as head of unscripted and international content. In 2019, Bajaria was ranked 43rd on Fortune’s Most Powerful Women list. In her new role as CCO, Bajaria will have a definitive say in determining what consumers will see on Netflix, and seems inclined to take a more-is-more approach: in a recent interview, Bajaria said of making content, “It’s not a science. It’s a big creative endeavor. But it’s about recognizing that people like having more.”

Despite seeming to pump out more and more content every year, Netflix’s content spending dropped by 5% in 2022. According to the streamer’s fourth-quarter earnings report, last year, Netflix paid $16.84 billion for content, 4.9% less than in 2021. Content obligations, or payments for acquiring, licensing and producing content over periods of multiple years, also fell 5.7%. Aside from a dip in spending at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, Netflix’s content spending has grown every single year since 2012, when it was just $2.5 billion. Going forward, CFO Spencer Neumann says that Netflix plans to “manage [their] cost structure with increasing discipline,” aiming for at least $3 billion of free cash flow in 2023. 

Netflix’s new co-CEOs Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters discussed shifting leadership, fourth-quarter earnings, and plans to tighten restrictions on account sharing in Netflix’s 2022 earnings interview. According to the report, Netflix accomplished a gain of 7.7 million new subscribers in Q4, far outperforming the previous estimate of 4.5 million. Owing to this success, executives don’t plan to make significant strategy changes in the upcoming year. However, the company did not break out the performance of new Netflix Basic With Ads, a budget option to the Basic plan, which rolled out in November. Peters calls it “ridiculously early” to assess the performance of the new structure, but says that subscriber engagement on the ad-supported plan is similar to Netflix’s original ad-free plan. Later in Q1, Netflix also plans to unveil a program to tamp down on password-sharing, a rollout that executives expect to be unpopular. Peters is prepared for a “bit of a cancel reaction” to the new rules. “We have a lot on our plate this year,” he said, anticipating the changes in pay structure and enforcement.

Streaming service BritBox International has appointed Jennifer Moon as head of editorial and programming strategy. In her new role, Moon will be tasked with leading U.S. and Canada programming strategy, acquisition, and scheduling. Moon previously worked as Director of Multiplatform Programming Strategy at AMC.

Warner Bros. VP of Original Series Development Nicole Rivera has announced she will be stepping down. In her five years at WB, Rivera worked on shows including Battu and Adventure Time: Fionna And Cake. Rivera announced on LinkedIn: “After five whirlwind years at Cartoon Network Studios, I’m available and looking for work.” The reason for Rivera’s exit has not been publicized.

NBC Universal will be merging its research and data science operations across all platforms under Peacock Executive VP and Chief Data Officer Will Gonzalez. NBCU cites a more synergistic and streamlined model of content analysis and creation. Overseeing this centralized structure is a promotion for Gonzalez, who will also continue to oversee decision sciences and consumer insight. He now counts on his plate the oversight of applied analytics, data engineering and data science across NBC, USA Network, Bravo, E!, Syfy, Oxygen, NBC Sports, and Telemundo. NBCU television and streaming chairman Mark Lazarus wrote in a note to staff: 

I hope that everyone’s new year is off to a great start and that you all were able to enjoy time over the holidays with family and friends.

As we kick off the new year, I want to recommit to our three core cultural pillars of teamwork, transparency, and trust. This team has a lot to be proud of on that front, and our recent successes across the portfolio certainly bring those tenets to life.

A part of that culture is our ongoing goal to increase collaboration by unifying key areas of expertise across our portfolio. On that note, I want to share that we are merging our research and decision sciences teams including applied analytics, data engineering, and data science into one portfolio-wide Television & Streaming organization, which will be run by Will Gonzalez as our EVP & Chief Data Officer. 

With so much content being shared and windowed across our networks and Peacock, this integrated team will allow us to better understand our audiences across platforms, more easily leverage resources that exist within the portfolio, and ultimately support the highest level of decision-making across all parts of our business.

Of course, it’s equally important that we continue to capitalize on deep content expertise within our businesses, all of which will remain intact. While the research teams that currently report into Entertainment Networks, NBC Sports, and Telemundo will now be part of this new centralized organization, they will remain embedded with and equally accountable to those businesses.  In addition to the broader portfolio, Will continue to oversee his current Decision Sciences and Consumer Insights teams within DTC.

In the five years he has been at NBCUniversal, Will has done a tremendous job leading a transformation to a more data-informed culture, building tools and capabilities that allow for democratized use of information to empower decision-making. Will created the decision sciences function within our Direct-to-Consumer business, enabling us to have a best-in-class understanding of the consumer that is powering Peacock as the fastest-growing U.S. streaming service. 

The evolution of this team under Will’s leadership is a great step forward in uniting our portfolio, and I look forward to the incredible opportunities for collaboration and the collective.