Netflix chief content material officer Bela Bajaria was a mixture of assured and informal on Jan. 31 as she led a really community TV-like presentation to clarify why Netflix is nothing like a standard TV community.

“No leisure firm has tried to program with this ambition — for this many tastes, cultures and languages. Ever,” Bajaria informed just a few dozen leisure reporters who gathered Wednesday on the streamer’s Tudum Theater in Hollywood for a TV and movie preview occasion dubbed “Subsequent on Netflix 2024.” She cited the sheer scale of the corporate’s 260 million worldwide subscriber base as one thing that may’t be in comparison with previous community TV dynasties.

“We will’t outline ourselves narrowly, though lots of you’d all the time like us to. However we are able to’t. We’ve got to assume rather more broadly about who’s watching and what they need,” Bajaria stated. “The most important errors I see artistic executives make are to program for one sensibility or assume that their preferences are what everybody else loves. And that’s exhausting as a result of many people do dwell on this coastal bubble.”

Bajaria famous that January 2024 marked the one-year anniversary of her elevation to chief content material officer for the trailblazing firm that she joined from NBCUniversal in 2016. She had just a few issues on her thoughts, not least of which was to problem the notion that Netflix’s content material technique is all around the map. To ask “what makes a Netflix present” is to overlook the purpose fully, Bajaria asserted to her viewers. She additionally gently chided leisure reporters for indulging in overheated hypothesis on names for potential successors for Netflix movie chief Scott Stuber, who introduced his exit again to producing final month.

“I’ve not met with all these individuals that you just’re all reporting,” she stated in the course of the post-presentation Q&A. She quipped, “It’s been like 5 seconds” since Stuber resigned.

In essence, Bajaria sought to emphasise that Netflix at this stage doesn’t perform as a monolithic community seeking to one an viewers profile as a lot as it’s a type of multichannel distributor. As an alternative of providing a lineup of particular person themed channels, Netflix retains the viewing all on one platform by providing huge bundles of packages that symbolize exhibits in each main (and not-so-major) style, theme, format or language. The streamer has to attraction to “a lot of totally different tastes and moods,” Bajaria stated, because it cooks up a gentle stream of recent TV and movie originals throughout its platform.

Netflix gave sneak peeks and first-looks at a number of recent exhibits for the approaching yr in the course of the roughly 90-minute session. However the bigger message was clear within the subtext of feedback from Bajaria and two key content material executives who joined her within the presentation: Brandon Riegg, VP of unscripted content material, and Francisco Ramos, VP of Latin American content material. Quantity and binge-viewing issues to Netflix subscribers: “They love various things they usually love new issues,” Bajaria defined. However so do high quality and distinctive storytelling rooted in specificity and worlds largely unseen on U.S. tv.

“We’ve discovered that it’s a mistake to attempt to cater to a ‘world’ viewers,” Ramos stated. “If you happen to attempt to make a movie or a sequence that appeals to everybody, you sometimes find yourself with one thing generic or bland that appeals to nobody. It’s why each native language authentic that turned a worldwide hit first took off in its house nation.”

Ramos outlined three high-profile Spanish-language originals coming this yr, together with a Colombian adaptation of the famend Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel “One Hundred Years of Solitude.”

New and returning sequence that acquired huge plugs have been “3 Physique Downside,” from the “Recreation of Thrones” showrunner duo of David Benioff and D.B. Weiss; “The Gents,” a classy crime drama from director Man Ritchie; “Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story,” from Ryan Murphy and Ian Brennan; Season 2 of Keri Russell starrer “The Diplomat”; and Netflix’s acquisition of Tina Fey’s much-praised Peacock comedy “Girls5eva.”

Riegg targeted most of his time on detailing Netflix’s technique of largely eschewing rights to dwell video games from sports activities leagues and franchises for sports-adjacent content material starting from documentaries to narrative biopics. He solely briefly talked about the $5 billion deal that Netflix struck final week with the WWE for 52 weeks a yr of dwell wrestling content material. When pressed in regards to the sexual abuse scandal that erupted round longtime (however now former) chairman Vince McMahon, Bajaria sliced the air with a hand gesture and pointed to his compelled resignation late final week. “He’s gone,” she stated. “He’s not there.”

As for the choice to get into grappling, a sport that has been a staple of TV because the Nineteen Fifties, Riegg thinks the WWE can have a heat welcome among the many subscriber base, and presumably herald new enterprise. “Just like lots of our different shoulder programming, sports activities narrative programming, there’s a chance and an upside for folk that may not have in any other case sampled [WWE] or checked it out and even been uncovered to it. And that basically to me is the ability of what we are able to do. So introducing it to a brand new set of followers in addition to servicing present followers that have been both already Netflix subscribers or will come over — ether manner is a win.”

All three executives sought to downplay the notion that Netflix programming selections are made by knowledge analytics-fed AI bots. In actual fact, the $17 billion annual truckload of content material that’s delivered by Netflix is assembled by small-ish and “tightly knit artistic staff teams” in strategic spots all over the world, Bajaria stated. “After we greenlight one thing, it’s as a result of a artistic government noticed one thing in a pitch or an concept that was distinct or stunning or daring — after which they felt the readability of the author or producers’ imaginative and prescient,” she stated.

Different tidbits from the session:

Grounding Halle Berry’s “The Mothership”: Bajaria maintained that the choice to drag the plug on the sci-fi film that has been within the can for 3 years got here as a consensus amongst key events. “There was simply lots of points throughout manufacturing and creatively, so everyone simply felt prefer it was the suitable factor to not do it, and do one thing else collectively finally.”

What’s subsequent for Harry and Meghan: The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have a “bunch of growth” within the hopper, albeit in early phases. The listing contains an unscripted sequence and a film, Bajaria stated.

Looking for Stuber’s Successor: Bajaria was pressed about what she’s searching for in Netflix’s subsequent movie chief. “Someone who’s actually enthusiastic about what we’re doing at Netflix and understanding we now have such an amazing alternative to make superb movies and plenty of totally different sorts of movies on this world service,” she stated.”

Reside TV Technique: The SAG Awards will unfold dwell on Netflix’s platform on Feb. 18. The WWE “Monday Evening Uncooked” deal that kicks in January 2025 will deliver three hours every week of dwell spectacle. “Reside is a terrific instrument when it comes to increasing the portfolio,” Riegg stated. “It’s relevant to all of the content material genres that we now have. The hope is as we get extra attuned to what persons are responding to, we’ll have a greater sense of like the larger occasions and moments that we are able to make dwell,.”