Lunch at Michael's® with FX' John Landgraf: Master Story Teller and Industry Leader

Although there are hundreds of wellknown executives in the television industry there are few leaders who are notable more for the relevance of their opinions than for the importance of their corporate platformJohn Landgraf president of Fox39s FX Network maintains a low industry profile but is becoming recognized as one of the most influential and interesting people in Hollywood The son of a preacher man John has launched a string of successful edgy and graphic series that have made FX popular with viewers and soughtafter by producers and talent With a commitment to airing these series after 10 PM ET and the most aggressive use of parental advisories in network TV John cares deeply about the responsible exercise of freedoms and boasts a lower percentage of viewers under 18 than HBO39s The Sopranos and Real Sex Regarding the New York State Supreme Court39s ruling overturning the FCC39s indecency decisions against Fox and CBS for use of language John comments quotThank God there39s a court that believes in freedom of speech The court found that if the industry makes a sincere effort to provide parents with proper tools that parents have the right to define viewing for their children The government does not have the right to step in if parents forego that responsibilityquotAs we lunched at Michael39s surrounded by a who39s who that included Sony39s Steve Mosko new Lifetime CEO Andrea Wong Michael Kassan Miss USA Rachel Smith and her namesake Liz Smith John shared his passion for first amendment rights his concerns about the looming strikes that could cripple TV production the importance of network brand identity his attitudes toward Nielsen ratings News Corp management and creativity and his focus on the historical importance of sustaining the art of narrative storytellingJohn Landgraf Ally Walker and family John comes by his passion naturally having spent his first few years traveling with his parents who were gospel musicians and provided backup for Baptist evangelist Mel Dibble until John was five years old Although his parents settled down as his mom received a masters degree in social work and his dad a doctorate in family counseling they soon divorced and John was constantly uprooted until spending three high school years in Oakland CA attending Skyline High quotIt39s why I39ve lived in the same city now for 27 years and am a stayathome family oriented dad who travels as little as possiblequot John laughs With his wife actress Ally Walker Profiler HBO39s upcoming Tell Me You Love Me John has three sons aged 9 6 and 3On Tuesday July 24 10 PM ETPT FX premieres one of its most ambitious series Damages starring Glenn Close The legal thriller is already generating buzz much of it resulting from the high bar of expectations set by FX39s Rescue Me The Shield NipTuck The Riches and Dirt quotWe39re on the cutting edge of where the new generation of storytellers arequot John suggests quotTV writers today are relevant to our age in the same way Shakespeare and Dickens were relevant to theirs Story telling was once the only way to translate values from generation to generation There needs to be a place for the sacred magic of storytelling and we try to provide that FX offers populist entertainment that digs deep into archetypal characters and shows good and evil in a socially responsible wayquotTo FX39s critics John argues quotit39s comic to accuse us of 39coarsening39 culture Our fans are as deeply passionate as fans of other forms of literature and entertainmentquot FX39s have resulted in more than 100 percent growth in ratings as the network has jumped from 12th ranked cable network to fourth this season among adults 18 to 49 in primetime Of the ten drama pilots FX has ordered in its short history eight have been 39picked up39 and if Damages succeeds six of the ten will be on the air next season The two quotfailedquot series were the critically acclaimed Stephen Bochco war series Over There and Thief for which Andre Braugher won an EMMY Award This is a record of success unequaled in recent television history and John believes the winning strategy is to continue to take risksquotThe risk of not taking risks is greater than the risk of failurequot he philosophizes quotConcern about failure eliminates the opportunity for great success and you choose to toil in mediocrity There39s a tendency to get conservative and the contention is you shouldn39t keep swinging for the fences But if you don39t you might as well pack your bags You need to put it on the line with every new series It39s too challenging a time in this business to play for singlesquotFX39s success may also result from John39s refusal to place too much emphasis on Nielsen ratings quotFinancial analysts who are risk managers and make decisions primarily on a numbers basis have taken over American business I understand analytics but the notion you can understand the world through linear analysis simply doesn39t apply to world affairs or to story telling People respond emotionally to television In narrative story telling you need to strike out in the wilderness and hope you hit a responsive chord and survivequot John believes the management team at Fox including Rupert Murdoch Peter Chernin and Tony Vinciquerra are quotsingularly skilled at running a media business They39re tough on delivering financiallyquot he says quotbut they leave an extra measure of freedom to managers They let people make gut level decisions and sink or swim on the resultsquot In turn John and his programming team believe in providing creative freedom and quotnon cynical emotional supportquot to series writers and producersJohn who39s also a classical flutist and sang in a barbershop quartet in college was rejected from Harvard Stanford and Swarthmore scrambling to gain entry to Pitzer College a young school in the 1980s a member of Claremont Colleges that has since gained an excellent reputation He became Convener of Students the equivalent of Student Council president and was a California Rhodes Scholarship finalist but accepted a Coro Foundation Fellowship which included internships at the Los Angeles Dept of Water and Power the California Association of Realtors and the California State Legislature But he was more attracted to a comparatively low profile internship at JNex Media a video production company specializing in corporate videos quotI started as a salesman and convinced them to let me write and produce segments I gave myself one year to find a job in TV or I39d go to graduate schoolquot John recalls Just a few months later in 1987 he became Director of Development for Sarabande Productions where he stayed for six years before being invited to join NBCTV As Vice President of Primetime Series he developed The West Wing Profiler and Suddenly Susan He then joined Danny DeVito Michael Shamberg and Stacey Sher as the Managing Partner of Jersey Television where they developed more than 50 primetime cable and broadcast series and put five series on the air in four yearsJohn acknowledges it39s quota difficult time to be a leader in business When large scale industries go through stress like the airline and auto business they try to hold onto their scale New businesses spring up with lower cost structures and they think outside the boxquot He is concerned there could be a drain of talent from television if the Screen Actors Guild and Writers Guild of America WGA decide to strike against the TV studios next year quotThe baseball strikes in the early 1980s led to baseball becoming America39s number three sport You couldn39t perceive its place was threatened prestrikequot Videogames and other first person narrative forms like Second Life and social media he believes could take a large chunk of market share from third person narrative forms like television and film quotThe story telling business has been cyclical but growing for many years but you can39t always extrapolate from the past predict the future I think the job of our current leaders is to keep us from looking backward at our glorious past and instead get us engaged in preparing for the radically different digital future that is now upon usquotTo contact John Landgraf write contactmediavillagecomamp174Lunch at Michael39s is a registered trademark of Myers Publishing LLCamp160

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Lunch at Michael's® with FX' John Landgraf: Master Story Teller and Industry Leader

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