How FX Chief John Landgraf Built One of TV’s Hottest Brands

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When Ryan Murphy took his Netflix deal, he visited FX chief John Landgraf's office, where they cried together. 'Without question, he’s been our most prolific producer,' Landgraf says

chief was in Orlando in January for the Walt Disney Television sales conference when he got a call from Disney CEO Bob Iger, asking if he wanted to visit the new “Avatar”-themed attraction at Animal Kingdom.chief operating officer Chuck Saftler at their hotel and drove them to the front gate of the park, where they were greeted by a Disney World official and escorted inside.

Landgraf came aboard FX at a time when the cable business was booming. The biggest channels, like FX, USA and TNT, were starting to dive into original programming, advertising was growing and the cable bundle that is shaky now was the envy of the rest of the TV industry.

Iger has indicated that of all the Fox brands Disney has acquired, FX is one of the likeliest to benefit from increased resources. In turn, the network is expected to grow its volume of shows while maintaining quality. “Having worked closely with John for the past eight years, it’s hard to distill him down to one or two attributes that stand out because he has so many strengths,” says Walt Disney Television chairman Peter Rice. “There are not many executives who are exceptional at developing content and running a business, and John excels at both. He is smart, principled, analytical, strategic and always measured, so he has my complete trust.

“That was step one in a process without end,” Landgraf says of the directors’ initiative, adding that FX is “trying to bring genuine opportunity and genuine diversity to a business and to a brand, but also to an industry that really has put Band-Aids on [its inclusion problem] but has lacked a kind of substantive, permanent solution.”

The question the exec now faces is whether the process he created for doing his job at FX can work in the wonderful world of Disney. His first entertainment job was for producer David Manson’s Sarabande Prods., working in development and post-production. From there Landgraf went to NBC, where he served as a programming executive under Warren Littlefield in the Must See TV era . His last pre-FX post was heading Danny DeVito’s Jersey Television.

FX’s hallmark has been not just quality but consistency. The network has won more TCA Awards in the past five years than any of its competitors and has, by its own count, topped more critics’ annual best-of lists. But more impressive might be how seldom it whiffs. Since Landgraf’s arrival, FX has made only four drama pilots that were not ordered to series.

 

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