FX Chief John Landgraf on State of Streaming TV: ‘The Competition Is Beginning to Narrow’

“We’re just in this middle inning period of radical transformation from the pre-internet area to the post-internet era,” the chairman said

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John Landgraf / Getty Images

FX content and productions chairman John Landgraf, who coined the term “Peak TV” in reference to the industry boom of scripted originals, reiterated his belief in the decline of the number of scripted series to be ordered and executed this year.

While the longtime executive joked that he’s been wrong in his predictions twice before, Landgraf said he believes the 599 shows made in 2022 will be the largest slate of content to come for a while.

“I think we have a strong indication that we’re going to start to see a decline in the beginning of 2023,” the executive said during the 2023 Winter Television Critics Association Press Tour. “As for FX’s output, we launched 19 returning series and six one-off programs. I don’t expect we’re going to expand beyond this output.”

Streamers like HBO Max, AMC+ and Netflix continue to rescind installment orders — at times amid and following production– and pull shows off of their platforms for budgetary purposes. Landgraf said his previous prediction is becoming apparent.

”The competition is beginning to narrow,” he said. “Several years ago, I predicted that very few brands were going to successfully make the transition to streaming and it looks like that’s coming true.”

During the Summer 2022 TCA Press Tour, Landgraf previously said, “We’ve reached the peak of the Peak TV era. Obviously, this year will bring a new record.” In a recent interview with Vulture, the chaiman affirmed his beliefs once again, predicting that 2023 will see the first decline for scripted series orders.

“The industry as a whole is going through this reckoning where it’s realizing that it can’t simplify as much as it thought it could,” Landgraf told journalists. “It has to have a certain amount of dimensionality and complexity. We’re just in this middle inning period of radical transformation from the pre-internet area to the post-internet era. And we’re in the really bumpy part of that transition.”

Landgraf also discussed how the increasing slew of content combined with the diminishing amount of audience attention and rise of social media can detrimentally affect the storytelling business, leading to a natural decline.

“It’s a meme-driven medium and I don’t think that’s good for cinema and longform storytelling,” he explained. “I think that ultimately just taking the time to really, really make something good, make it stand out, but then, of course, you have to galvanize people’s attention, their attention is consumed, like all of ours, by our screens and by our devices and by all these things that are rolling in front of us continuously trying to get people to pause and have a really special experience. I think it’s a challenge that Hollywood’s having right now.”

A possible avenue for the future of the television business is a rise in unscripted orders, with FX’s “Welcome to Wrexham” being one of the network’s biggest hits. This morning, FX announced its premiere dates for upcoming docuseries “Dear Mama,” about Tupac Shakur and his mother Afeni, as well as two new documentaries from “The New York Times Presents.”

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