FX President John Landgraf on Violence in Entertainment and Responsible Programming - Ed Martin Live

In support of John Landgraf39s recent comments on gun control and violence Ed Martin39s exclusive commentary for Jack Myers Media Business Report members is being distributed widely to media advertising marketing and financial executivesPasadena CA amp8211 Violence in entertainment and the responsibilities that come with the scheduling of adult content were very much top of mind yesterday morning during a session with FX Networks President and General Manager John Landgraf at the Winter 2013 Television Critics Association tour FX Networks it should be noted remains the only basic cable network to present a session with its top executive at every Winter and Summer TCA tourWhen asked about violence on television and whether or not it is having an impact on society amp8211 a hot topic at this tour following the mass murder last month in Newtown Conn amp8211 Landgraf didn39t hold backquotI39m a really curious person and I really want to know the truth of everything so I39ve been interested to read what studies there have been on correlations between violence in entertainment and violence in actual lifequot he said quotI think as an industry if we can find meaningful correlations we should act upon those correlationsquotFor me personally I39m more comfortable with what I would call third person entertainment meaning I39m watching a character that39s explicitly not me and I39m ratcheting onto that character and experiencing something through that character39s eyes than what I would call first person entertainment which is to say a video game in which I am the characterquot he continued quotI have three sons They39re 15 12 and 9 and we don39t have Xbox or PlayStations and I don39t let them play first person shooter games because I39m not comfortable with that If you ask my 15 year old who has played a lot of them at friends39 houses he says 39Well it39s kind of disturbing because you39re not hunting for food You39re in a first person context and you39re killing everything in sight39 So I think we should talk about it We should research it and all things should be fair game whether they39re video games or entertainment programmingquotThat said after being so upset and so horrified and sad and angry over what happened at Newtown I went and looked at statistics on gun violence and specifically gun homicide One thing that really struck me was amp8230 data from Great Britain and data from the United States constitutional democracies that share an awful lot They39re socially fairly similar The incidents of gun death in America are 10 per 100000 per year And the incidents in England are 25 per 100000 per year The incidence of homicide by gun is more than 90 times higher in America and we consume the same media Same movies same television shows and the same video games 39Call of Duty39 is a very popular game in England 39The Walking Dead39 is the No 1 cable show in England 39Sons of Anarchy39 is very popular in England Last time I checked James Bond kills an awful lot of people with a gunquotI39m someone who believes very strongly in both the First Amendment and the Second Amendment so I believe that we have the right to free speech in this country and I believe that we have the right to have guns for protection But last time I checked I think shotguns or handguns that have six round clips are very good weapons perfectly adequate weapons for selfdefense in the home The other day it came out that the crazy man even if I knew his name I wouldn39t say it out loud who shot up the movie theater in Aurora Colorado got off either 27 shots in 30 seconds or 30 shots in 27 seconds We have to look at what is most substantially responsible for this kind of violence and one way to look at that is by looking at the rate at which it takes place in our country and other countries that don39t have access to those kinds of assault weapon guns which just allow a crazy person to create an untold amount of mayhemquotCan it be one critic asked that the elusive young male audience FX is so successful at attracting can only be lured by the expectation of a certain level of violencequotWe actually have a surprising number of abstract theoretical conversations at the networkquot Landgraf replied adding that one executive recently said quotour greatest fear is deathquot so if the network wants to rivet people it would make sense to hover around questions of life and death when telling stories quotIf you look at the six highest rated dramas and miniseries in cable out of approximately 70 drama series they are in order 39The Walking Dead 39Hatfields ampamp McCoys39 39True Blood39 39Sons of Anarchy39 39American Horror Story39 and 39Game of Thrones39 The nonviolent 39Suits39 is No 7 The top six are all in some way you could say about violence I would say they39re about lifeordeath stakes Let39s not kid ourselves That will always be very compelling for people to watchquotThe adult content issue also ties into FX39s prime time identity in that the network doesn39t program its original series earlier than 10 pm ET quotTen years ago when we launched 39The Shield39 we said we39re going to be in the TVMA businessquot Landgraf said quotWe39re going to make shows that are maybe not exactly premium cable but are as close to premium cable in content as possible We made a pledge that we were going to keep them away from kids and we were going to put them at 10 o39clock And we39ve really honored thatquotI pulled the data recently because I was curious about thisquot he continued quotIf you look at the percentage of people under 18 who watch our dramas it39s less than 5 percent And if you look at the same data for 39Game of Thrones39 39True Blood39 and 39Dexter39 it39s about 5 percent or 4 percent I mean it39s literally the exact same ratio for premium as it is for basic and I think that39s because we39ve been responsible about putting it post10 o39clock and really labeling it and warning people I don39t want to change that I think some of our comedies might be appropriate for lateteens but I don39t think our shows are really appropriate for kidsquotUnless we had a significant amount of original series that were not TVMA I don39t think we would put them before 10 pm And at this point I think there39s plenty of non TVMA programming that39s good I think USA makes a lot of it and they make it really well I don39t really think that we could add much to the ecosystem in terms of that kind of programming so I wouldn39t really see us going to 9 o39clockquot

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FX President John Landgraf on Violence in Entertainment and Responsible Programming - Ed Martin Live

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