- Ted Sarandos Is All “Spin,” Other CEOs “Irresponsible” For Abandoning Talks To End Strike, SAG-AFTRA’s Duncan Crabtree-Ireland Says Deadline
- Netflix Plans “Substantial Changes” to Executive Pay After Shareholders Rejected CEO Pay Packages Hollywood Reporter
- Ted Sarandos Addresses SAG-AFTRA Strike, Data Transparency Vulture
- Ted Sarandos Blames SAG-AFTRA For Breaking “Momentum” & Contract Talks Ending; “We Want …To Get Everyone Back To Work” Deadline
- Netflix Promises ‘Substantial Changes’ to Executive Pay Model After Shareholder Pushback TheWrap
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Tag Archives: Sarandos
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Defends Not Disclosing Streaming Numbers: Creators Felt ‘Trapped’ by Ratings, Box Office – Variety
- Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Defends Not Disclosing Streaming Numbers: Creators Felt ‘Trapped’ by Ratings, Box Office Variety
- Netflix Changing CEO Pay Structure After Shareholders Reject Packages Hollywood Reporter
- Ted Sarandos Blames SAG-AFTRA For Breaking “Momentum” & Contract Talks Ending; “We Want …To Get Everyone Back To Work” Deadline
- Netflix Didn’t Offer Data Transparency Because of ‘Promise with Creators,’ Ted Sarandos Says IndieWire
- Netflix’s Ted Sarandos: More Streaming Data Transparency Is Coming Hollywood Reporter
- View Full Coverage on Google News
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Says “We Don’t Want A Writers Strike” But Highlights “Robust” Slate Of Films & Series In Case Of WGA Action – Deadline
- Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Says “We Don’t Want A Writers Strike” But Highlights “Robust” Slate Of Films & Series In Case Of WGA Action Deadline
- Netflix Co-CEO Ted Sarandos: “Driving Folks to a Theater Is Just Not Our Business” Hollywood Reporter
- Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Says He Doesn’t Want a Writers Strike, but ‘We Do Have a Pretty Robust Slate’ If There Is Variety
- Ted Sarandos: Netflix Is Prepared ‘Better Than Most’ if There’s a Writers Strike IndieWire
- Ted Sarandos on Potential Writers Strike: Netflix Could Fare Better Than Others During Work Stoppage Hollywood Reporter
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Ted Sarandos Talks About That Stock Drop, Backing Dave Chappelle, and Hollywood Schadenfreude
The Netflix Lobby Metric
Over a three-hour dinner, Mr. Sarandos was charming and upbeat, dressed down in Levi’s and sneakers. You would never know he had been through a Job-level run of bad fortune in the last few months. First, his father, with whom he was very close, died. Soon after, his mother-in-law, Jacqueline Avant, with whom he was also very close, was shot to death when she encountered a burglar in the middle of the night at her Beverly Hills home. Ms. Avant, renowned in Hollywood for her elegance, art collecting, philanthropy and community organizing in Watts, Calif., was the wife of Clarence Avant, a music mogul known as the “Black Godfather.”
Then, on top of Mr. Sarandos’s personal woes, Netflix skidded from rapid growth to grind-it-out. (Its stock peaked above $700 a share in November 2021 and has now fallen below $200.)
The rise of Mr. Sarandos, a community college night-school dropout, from a video store clerk in Arizona to the pinnacle of Hollywood, is legendary.
“He’s had more singular influence on movies and television shows than anyone ever had,” Barry Diller told me. “He has denuded the power of the old movie companies that had held for almost 100 years. They are now irrelevant to setting the play and rules of the day. If there is still a Hollywood, he is it.”
Only a few years ago, the Netflix lobby was the coolest place on earth. Now it’s suddenly gloomy. In her “Saturday Night Live” monologue last weekend, Natasha Lyonne, the star of Netflix’s “Russian Doll,” sarcastically cracked that the “two things you definitely want to be associated with right now are Russia and Netflix.”
After winning the pandemic, Netflix now finds itself in its own version of its survival drama “Squid Game.” The company hit a ceiling, for now, of some 220 million subscribers, after thinking it could get to a billion with its global empire, and that has thrown a wrench into the future of Netflix and streaming in general. Wall Street suddenly turned a cold shoulder on its former darling, telling Netflix, Guess what, guys, you’ve got to make money, not just grow subscriptions.
Kevin Hart and Ted Sarandos Have Sit-Down Chat Amid Chappelle Drama
Kevin Hart isn’t one to embrace controversy for kicks — which is why a one-on-one between Netflix’s CEO and him is all the more interesting … especially as the Dave Chappelle drama’s still swirling.
Check out this photo TMZ obtained of the rock star comedian chopping it up with Ted Sarandos Monday evening in Beverly Hills. They were at the Waldorf Astoria, where eyewitnesses say the duo had dinner and talked extensively for quite some time.
Although you can’t see Sarandos’ face in the pic … other entertainment big wigs who were around confirmed it was him.
What they talked about remains a mystery, but the mere fact they had a private little chat like this, especially amid all the Chappelle drama at Netflix, can’t be ignored … as Dave and Kevin are good friends, and anyone cozying up to Ted right now (especially comics) might as well be cosigning what DC had to say and what Netflix decided to do.
Of course, Kev already has a major relationship with the streamer — a multi-movie/year deal for movies and special — so maybe this had absolutely nothing to do with Dave at all … but something tells us the topic came up.
Netflix
There’s also this … Kevin himself was embroiled in an LGBTQ-related controversy a few years ago — one that ended up costing him his Oscars hosting gig, this after he waffled on apologizing for years-old tweets that some considered offensive and anti-gay.
Not saying one thing has to do with the other … but that history also exists in this context.
Netflix CEO Ted Sarandos Says He ‘Screwed Up’ Chappelle Response
Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos is walking back his repeated defenses of Dave Chappelle’s new standup special, “The Closer,” admitting that he “screwed up” internal communications just hours before employees were set to stage a virtual walkout.
In separate interviews with Variety and Deadline on Tuesday, Sarandos admitted that Netflix’s recent moves to curtail employee backlash over the special—including temporarily suspending three employees for crashing an executive-level meeting, firing a pregnant organizer, and doubling down on claims that “content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm”—had maybe not been the savviest way to handle a burgeoning crisis at the company.
“I had a group of employees who were definitely feeling pain and hurt from a decision we made. And I think that needs to be acknowledged upfront before you get into the nuts and bolts of anything,” Sarandos told Variety. “I didn’t do that. That was uncharacteristic for me, and it was moving fast and we were trying to answer some really specific questions that were floating.”
Sarandos also reversed course on prior statements about the impact of the platform’s storytelling, admitting that “of course storytelling has an impact on the real world — sometimes positive and sometimes negative.”
“That is why I work here, that content actually can make the world a better place through our storytelling, through onscreen representation and all those things,” Sarandos told Deadline. “So it was a gross simplification.”
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In the wake of a fiery public outcry over perceived transphobia embedded within Chappelle’s special, Netflix’s trans employee resource group had swiftly mobilized to coordinate a work stoppage, and had also presented management with a list of demands that included getting the company to acknowledge that transphobic content causes harm. Other demands included the hiring of multiple trans creators to make both scripted and unscripted programs, and significantly stepped up investments in trans and non-binary talent “comparable to our total investment in transphobic content.”
On October 17, Bloomberg reported that Netflix paid Chappelle $24.1 million for “The Closer”—a staggering sum, even by the platform’s deep-pocketed standards. That number came in spite of the fact that, according to internal data leaked to Bloomberg, Chappelle’s previous special, 2019’s Sticks & Stones, had achieved an “impact value” of $19.4 million—meaning it cost more than the value it generated. The disclosures also revealed that the 2019 special had scored a 0.8 on the company’s “efficiency,” scale, which evaluates the streamer’s programming in terms of cost and reach (a 1 is considered a break-even score is ).
Those data points had been significant because they constituted a rare leak for Netflix—a company that prides itself on its internal transparency, but which expressly forbids employees from sharing the information it supplies them with. Netflix later confirmed that the pregnant employee that was fired—a member and key organizer of the trans employee resource group—had been terminated on suspicion of leaking the information to Bloomberg.
Ahead of the planned walkout—framed by trans employees and allies as a “day of rest”—Netflix issued a statement “apologizing” for the harm it caused and owning up to the existence of blind spots within the company.
“We value our trans colleagues and allies, and understand the deep hurt that’s been caused. We respect the decision of any employee who chooses to walk out, and recognize we have much more work to do both within Netflix and in our content.”
Ted Sarandos says he “screwed up” Chappelle special response
Ted Sarandos wants you to know that he “screwed up.” After two weeks of suspensions, firings, internal memos, and people criticizing Chappelle’s latest attempt at making his transphobia funny, the Netflix co-CEO is ready to admit some wrongdoing. Not for the transphobia that he platformed, but rather for not leading “with a lot more humanity.”
In a late-night chat with Variety, Sarandos walked back some of his disastrous response to The Closer backlash. But, this time, rather than defending Dave Chappelle from his employees who were rightfully hurt by their boss’ decision to pay $24.1 million for Chappelle’s tirades about trans people, Sarandos has a new message: Whoopsie doodles.
When asked by Variety if he had any regrets about backing the transphobic comedian, Sarandos said:
Obviously, I screwed up that internal communication. I did that, and I screwed it up in two ways. First and foremost, I should have led with a lot more humanity. Meaning, I had a group of employees who were definitely feeling pain and hurt from a decision we made. And I think that needs to be acknowledged up front before you get into the nuts and bolts of anything. I didn’t do that. That was uncharacteristic for me, and it was moving fast and we were trying to answer some really specific questions that were floating. We landed with some things that were much more blanket and matter-of-fact that are not at all accurate.
Of course storytelling has real impact in the real world. I reiterate that because it’s why I work here, it’s why we do what we do. That impact can be hugely positive, and it can be quite negative. So, I would have been better in that communication. They were joining a conversation already in progress, but out of context. But that happens, internal emails go out. In all my communications I should lean into the humanity up front and not make a blanket statement that could land very differently than it was intended.
Of course, this all comes after two weeks of crisis management at Netflix. During that time, the company suspended and reinstated a trans employee who criticized the special on Twitter and fired another trans employee who leaked how much Chapelle got paid for the special. The latter also organized a company walkout in solidarity with those on staff who aren’t “team TERF.” And all this for the low, low price of $24.1 million.
Sarandos failed to elaborate on how the company might avoid this in the future. We assume this is because saying that they’re not going to platform anti-LGBTQIA+ rhetoric might prevent them from offering future Chappelle specials. In short, he said they’re still working on it:
We are trying to support creative freedom and artistic expression among the artists that work at Netflix. Sometimes, and we do make sure our employees understand this, because of that — because we’re trying to entertain the world, and the world is made up of folks with a lot of different sensibilities and beliefs and senses of humor and all those things — sometimes, there will be things on Netflix that you dislike. That you even find to be harmful. Where we’ll definitely draw the line is on something that would intentionally call for physically harming other people or even remove protections. For me, Intent to cause physical harm crosses the line, for sure.
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Nevertheless, despite paying Chappelle an ungodly amount of money to attack trans people, Sarandos says that the company is still investing in “LGBTQ+ stories.” Stories, now, apparently mean something and have an impact on the world.
We have a creative equity fund that we’ve heavily invested in, exactly the things I believe they are asking about. We have and continue to invest enormously amounts of content dollars in LGBTQ+ stories for the world and giving them a global platform. Specifically, trans and non-binary content as well. That’s obviously continued strong, and I think we’ll continue on that path.
So there you go. Just because Sarandos is willing to pay Chappelle $24 million for what GLAAD called “anti-LGBTQ diatribes” doesn’t mean he won’t put some money towards cultivating LGBTQIA+ subscribers. Money’s money, after all.
Read the whole interview at Variety.
Netflix’s Ted Sarandos Admits “I Screwed Up” Amid Dave Chappelle Controversy – Deadline
Today was a big day for Netflix, which reported strong quarterly earnings and “mind-boggling” 142 million households that have sampled runaway hit Squid Game. But the celebration was subdued in the streamer’s upper echelons as the company is still reeling from the internal — and external — backlash against transphobic statements in Dave Chappelle’s latest Netflix special The Closer.
While Chappelle had included anti-trans jokes in his act before, including in the 2019 Netflix special Stick and Stones, The Closer, which was delivered to the streamer a week before its release, struck a chord.
The situation was exacerbated by two internal emails by Netflix co-CEO Ted Sarandos — sent out on the same day and leaked days apart — in which he defended Chappelle and argued that content like The Closer does not “directly translate to real-world harm.”
The special and Sarandos’ comments have been met with criticism by Netflix transgender employees, which are organizing a company walkout Wednesday in protest, and by LGBTQ+ Netflix talent, including another prominent standup comic, Emmy winner Hannah Gadsby. One employee has been fired over leaked information about The Closer while three others who had spoken up about it internally were suspended and then reinstated.
In a brief interview with Deadline, Sarandos addresses the reaction to The Closer; the decision not to pull, edit or put a content warning on it; the internal handling of the controversy; as well as the now-infamous no “real-world harm” comment.
DEADLINE: What do you make of the way the reaction to Dave Chappelle’s special was handled by Netflix and by you?
SARANDOS: First, right upfront, I screwed up the internal communication — and I don’t mean just mechanically. I feel I should’ve made sure to recognize that a group of our employees was hurting very badly from the decision made, and I should’ve recognized upfront before going into a rationalization of anything the pain they were going through. I say that because I respect them deeply, and I love the contribution they have at Netflix. They were hurting, and I should’ve recognized that first.
DEADLINE: What about the decision to address the issue in internal emails and the statement in the second one that content does not translate to real-world harm? Do you have second thoughts about how that came out and was perceived?
SARANDOS: We are in uncharted grounds here, we have never had internal emails leaked to the press before, and I would say that the issue with that is, they were a conversation in progress. That’s one email, and when you look at it and say, it was meant to ask a very specific question and landed like a big blanket statement.
And the big blanket statement should’ve been, of course storytelling has an impact on the real world — sometimes positive and sometimes negative. That is why I work here, that content actually can make the world a better place through our storytelling, through onscreen representation and all those things. So it was a gross simplification. And It didn’t land where it should have, which is, there was a conversation about the one-to-one impact of a certain piece of content. It came out with a very blanket statement that storytelling doesn’t have impact on the real world which is the opposite of everything I’ve ever said, thought or felt.
DEADLINE: Were you surprised by the strong reaction to the special?
SARANDOS: I think the only surprise was that this is a stated conflict in the business around freedom of speech and creative expression that I feel very passionate about and also understanding that if you put things on Netflix that please some people that some people will dislike it, members and employees. It’s impossible to please everybody but we are trying to please a world that is made of people of different tastes, sensibilities and beliefs, and it becomes very difficult to do that for everybody. We have stated it internally that we are going to have some things on Netflix that you don’t like. There are some things on Netflix that may be harmful to you, your colleagues and your friends but we are trying to entertain the world and make business decisions that are protective of creative freedom and artists and also respectful, safe workspace.
DEADLINE: Do you have regrets releasing the special, not editing it or putting on content warnings?
SARANDOS: Stand-up comedy is a pretty singular voice art form. The comedians will road test the material for some times two years before they record their special so we really don’t get involved and interfere with the material itself, and I think it’s
consistent with a brand of stand-up comedy and certainly consistent with Dave Chappelle’s comedy, so I don’t think a warning card or an edit would’ve been appropriate.
Sarandos Mounts New Defense – Deadline
The controversy over Netflix’s Dave Chappelle special The Closer continued today with allegations that employees had raised concerns about the doc before it debuted, reports of a planned walkout next week by and in support of the company’s trans employees and a leaked memo from company co-CEO Ted Sarandos maintaining that violent or abusive content does not spur viewers to harm others.
A report from Bloomberg said that Netflix staffers raised flags about The Closer in the days before it was released, specifically “that a series of jokes about gender-neutral pronouns and the genitalia of transgender people was potentially inflammatory and damaging.”
Sarandos apparently addressed those and other concerns in a memo sent to employees on Monday. According to Variety, the co-CEO wrote about “trade-offs” and “the principles that guide our team’s content choices,” before focusing on “titles which could increase real world harm.” Sarandos wrote that, “we have a strong belief that content on screen doesn’t directly translate to real-world harm.” As proof, he cited the data showing that “violence on screens has grown hugely over the last thirty years, especially with first party shooter games, and yet violent crime has fallen significantly in many countries.”
Deadline reached out to Netflix for comment on both the alleged memo and report about staff concerns, but did not immediately hear back.
On the company’s Twitter feed devoted to LGBTQ+ storytelling, Most, commenters weren’t convinced about the company’s motives.
Replying to a string of tweets from the people who maintain the account — which included “sorry we haven’t been posting, this week f*cking sucks” — commenters said:
“Excuse me why aren’t _YOU_ standing up for “our” community? You do recognize how crappy your company is being, right? Please tell me you recognize”
And:
“…this year I gave myself the gift of unsubscribing from Netflix, because I won’t give my money to companies that fund and platform transphobia (and suspend trans employees for objecting)”
Or more directly:
“Delete this sanctimonious b#llsh*t you f#ck*ng hypocrites”
sorry we haven’t been posting, this week fucking sucks (🧵)
— Most (@Most) October 13, 2021
It seems some Netflix employees are not convinced, either.
Transgender staffers and their co-workers plan to stage a walkout next week protesting the streaming giant’s stance on The Closer, according to the Los Angeles Times. They are urging cohorts “not to work for Netflix that day” in order to “challenge the very principles of our company.”