Peter Rice’s 190-Country Headache: Find Netflix’s Next ‘Squid Game’

Peter Rice spent his Fox and Disney years making television for American audiences. Now, as Netflix’s chief content officer, he’s responsible for a business that operates in 190 countries and produces local programming in 50.

According to British media firm Enders Analysis, 40 percent of Netflix’s viewers don’t count English as their primary language.

“It’s going to be really challenging to get his head across everything,” says Sophie Taitt, who spent seven years helping build Netflix’s international production operation and now works as a media strategist. “That’s a complicated business you are responsible for.… The infrastructure is not insignificant.”

But Rice’s biggest challenge may not be managing Netflix’s sprawling international empire. It may be figuring out why that empire, which delivered the global phenomenon Squid Game five years ago, has struggled to produce another breakout of comparable magnitude — and whether Netflix’s own programming strategy is partly to blame.

Much of that infrastructure was built by Rice’s predecessor, Bela Bajaria. She helped set up Netflix offices in 27 countries and oversaw a team that delivered global breakouts including Squid Game and Lupin. She received an award for those efforts at Mipcom in Cannes earlier this month. Two days later, she was ousted.

Rice’s new remit is far more complicated than Ted Sarandos might have Wall Street believe. The message during Netflix’s Oct. 20 earnings call was that international, which is “largely working,” isn’t the problem: There’s success in Japan, Korea and the Nordics; viewing hours in India grew 24 percent year over year; and the deal with French commercial broadcaster TF1 is providing “incremental” value that Netflix leaders are counting as a win. Rice’s job, as Netflix frames it, is to deliver more U.S.-produced hits that will lift all boats globally.

What I heard from Netflix insiders and international producers this week suggests Rice’s problems go well beyond finding another hit. There’s a question about whether he needs to install a new international boss, growing frustration among producers who say Netflix’s rules are limiting their ambitions, and skepticism about the French partnership the streamer is already touting as a success.

And perhaps most troubling of all: The very strategy Netflix considers its competitive advantage may be making it harder to produce the next Squid Game.

So does Rice preserve the global empire Bajaria built — or start dismantling parts of the playbook that made it successful?