Netflix Boss Bela Bajaria On Noms

Netflix’s 121 Emmy nominations came from 44 titles across 14 genres and includes series as divergent as Adolescence and America’s Sweethearts: Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders.

The streamer also helped 11 stars land their first Emmy nomination.

Chief content officer Bela Bajaria is pleased with both of these things as she celebrates her company’s achievements out of this morning’s reveals.

“We’re very pleased because they come from 44 titles and 14 different program categories,” she told Deadline. “I’ll tell you why that’s important and there’s a lot of happy people in and outside the building is because we’re always aiming for excellence in television but across a lot of different [genres]. We know that audiences love drama and comedy but they also love unscripted and docs and animation and limited series, stand-up and TV movies so to be recognized in all of those different categories is really rewarding.”

Headlines include The Diplomat competing in Outstanding Drama Series, Nobody Wants This in Outstanding Comedy Series, and Adolescence, Black Mirror and Monsters: The Lyle and Erik Menendez Story in Outstanding Limited or Anthology Series.

Netflix’s first-time Emmy nominees also include some surprising names including Monsters: The Lyle & Erik Menendez Story’s Javier Bardem, who won an Oscar for No Country For Old Men, Chloe Sevigny and Cooper Koch, Nobody Wants This’ Kristen Bell and Adam Brody, and Bad Thoughts’ Tom Segura.

This list also included a slew of Brits from its breakout one-shot success story Adolescence including Owen Cooper, the youngest ever nominee in his category, Erin Doherty, Stephen Graham, Christine Tremarco and Ashley Walters.

There were also noms for established Emmy nominees including The Residence’s Uzo Aduba, The Four Seasons’ Colman Domingo, The Diplomat’s Keri Russell and Sirens’ Meghann Fahy.

Bajaria joked that it was incredibly pleasing to be able to help actors get their first nomination, even if they’re not old enough to drink, as is the case with Cooper.

“To have Owen, who’s never done anything before, he gets his first nomination. Then also there’s Javier Bardem, Stephen Graham and Adam Brody and Kristen Bell, who have such an extended body of work, that range is pretty incredible,” she added.

She also joked about never betting against Beyoncé, whose Beyoncé Bowl is up against two different Saturday Night Live extensions.

Netflix has long cornered the stand-up market and it managed to get five of the six nominations in the Outstanding Variety Special (Pre-Recorded) category: Adam Sandler: Love You, Ali Wong: Single Lady, Conan O’Brien: The Kennedy Center Mark Twain Prize For American Humo, Sarah Silverman: PostMortem and Your Friend, Nate Bargatze.

It was only Bill Burr, a man with six Netflix specials, with his Hulu special Drop Dead Years that stopped it from sweeping the category. “We have a long relationship with Bill, so always happy to see him [nominated], he’s so talented,” she said, joking that she will strive to make it six for six next year.

There were a few disappointments; Allison Janney missed out for her role in The Diplomat and Squid Game, which made history in 2022 by becoming the first non-English-language show to secure an Emmy nomination in the main drama category, was completely snubbed for its second season.

“That was the one that I was disappointed in. Because I think if Emmys are supposed to be about excellence in storytelling, Squid Game had that with amazing characters. It made Emmy history in the first season and it’s incredible storytelling. It’s the biggest show in the world, so if you think those are supposed to be all of the criteria to getting recognized in the Emmys, I am disappointed,” she said.

If there’s a bias against non-English language shows and stars, perhaps Squid Game’s surprise cameo [SPOILER ALERT] featuring Cate Blanchett in the finale season will change that for next year.

Some were surprised that The Residence’s Uzo Aduba, who was nominated in Outstanding Lead Actress in a Comedy Series, picked up a nom, particularly seeing as the Shonda Rhimes-produced show was canceled after one season.

“It’s always painful to cancel a show. But Uzo has been part of the Netflix family for a long time and has been recognized in the past, and she gave an incredible performance, and I thought she was going to get nominated. That was not a surprise at all. Her performance was amazing. We developed, marketed and launched [The Residence]. We loved the show. She was incredible in it. That she got recognized for her work is great. That is not the conversation about renewing a whole show,” she added.

Black Mirror also picked up a tranche of nominations. It scored ten noms this morning to add to its Outstanding TV Movie wins in 2017, 2018 and 2019. Deadline revealed last week that creator Charlie Brooker and his producing partner Annabel Jones exited their Netflix-backed production company but Bajaria said that this will have no impact on the show going forward.

“We’re continuing to work with Charlie, and he has other things that we’re excited about continuing. We’ve got a long standing relationship with him, and he is such a talent,” she said.

Earlier this year, the former NBCU executive made a point of highlighting that Netflix was still in the “prestige” TV space, even  if a definition is hard to come by. “Those of you who know me know that I love myth-busting. And one of the biggest myths about Netflix is that we don’t do ‘prestige TV’ — or we don’t do as much of it as we used to,” she said at a Netflix event in January. “Now, the most annoying thing about this myth — besides the fact that it’s not true — is that nobody knows what ‘prestige TV’ actually is. Is it a critically acclaimed show? Does it win awards? Is it a show audiences love? Is it one that people at your dinner parties in New York and L.A. talk about? Like I said, no one knows. The only thing we do know is that a lot of people who brag about making prestige TV have a very narrow audience.”

But today’s haul – an increase on last year’s number but behind HBO – was case in point.

“What we’re always going to try and do is either prestige or excellence in these categories and titles and shows that a lot of people watch. We will do Will & Harper and America’s Sweethearts and Arcance, incredible in those categories and have The Diplomat, Nobody Wants This and Adolescence. It’s still about both. We also have the breadth. We’re not trying to just do excellent or prestige or fan favorite in drama and comedy, we have to be great at all of those categories,” she added.