Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Jan 20: Reed Hastings, a co-founder of Netflix, announced on Thursday that he will step down as CEO and transfer control of the streaming service to Greg Peters, the company’s COO, and Ted Sarandos, his longstanding business partner and co-CEO.
Hastings will serve as executive chairman and share the role of chief executive with Sarandos and Peters. The decision, which is the result of ten years of board succession planning, is effective right away. Peters and Sarandos both received promotions in July 2020, which came at a difficult time for the business.
“It was a baptism by fire, given Covid and recent challenges within our business,” Hastings wrote in a blog post announcing his departure. “But they’ve both managed incredibly well … so the board and I believe it’s the right time to compete my succession.”
Hastings leaves on a positive note. With the aid of ‘Harry & Meghan’ and ‘Wednesday,’ Netflix reported that it added 7.66 million customers in the fourth quarter, exceeding Wall Street expectations of 4.57 million.
Walt Disney, Amazon.com, and other companies have been investing billions of dollars to produce TV shows and movies for internet viewers, putting pressure on the pioneer of streaming video.
Customers stopped using Netflix in the first half of 2022. In the second half, it resumed growing, but the rate of new client additions is still below that of recent years.
In 12 nations last November, Netflix unveiled a less expensive, ad-supported option to jumpstart growth. Plans to cut down on password sharing have also been made public. At the end of December, the firm had 231 million subscribers worldwide.
Wednesday, the third-most watched programme in Netflix history, had a large audience, the firm claimed. During the quarter, the murder mystery ‘Glass Onion’ and the British royals documentary ‘Harry & Meghan’ both enjoyed success.
