Netflix’s Bela Bajaria Talks ‘Myth Busters’ at UCLA Law Event: ‘Algorithms Don’t Decide What We Make’

variety.com:

Cynthia Littleton Business Editor Netflix chief content officer Bela Bajaria used the platform of her keynote address Friday at the UCLA Entertainment Symposium to dispel a few myths that persist around the streamer that has transformed television viewing during the past decade.

During an hourlong, wide-ranging Q&A with veteran entertainment attorney Ken Ziffren, Bajaria made the forceful case that “algorithms don’t decide what we make” when it comes to how Netflix uses data to inform programming and strategic decisions. “There’s not an algorithm that would probably say, you know what’s a great idea?

A period show about a woman playing chess,” Bajaria said, pointing to 2021’s “The Queen’s Gambit,” which raked in 11 Emmys for the streamer including the trophy for best limited series.

Nor would data analytics ever deliver a report instructing them to “do something thematically about connection and lonliness, and maybe throw in road rage for the inciting incident,” Bajaria added, pointing to this year’s Ali Wong-Steven Yeun starrer “Beef.” Bajaria, a seasoned veteran of CBS and NBCUniversal before joining Netflix in 2016, came down strongly in favor of the all-episodes-at-once binge model for episodic television, compared to the weekly cadence of traditional TV. (As Ziffren touched on Netflix tropes, Bajaria leaned in to the opportunity to deliver what she called “tiny myth busters.”) “There is no data to support that weekly is better, and it’s not a great consumer experience,” Bajaria told Ziffren, partner and co-founder of Ziffren Brittenham.