š„Strikegeist is Now... Series Business
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Hello hello, Strikegeist readers!
Itās been a minute. While the strikes have ended, the television business is starting to get back into gear (after some fits and starts). The buying and selling market is as competitive as ever: writers and producers want to know what the studios and networks are looking for; studio execs want to know what other studios are up to; industry observers want to know what people are saying on the ground.Ā
So Iām writing today about a special from The Ankler (our big sister publication) for all of you who formed this smart and informed community.
I now have a new TV newsletter at The Ankler under the banner, Series Business. It is sent out every Monday and dives deep into the industry, both in the U.S. and the U.K. (the latter thanks to my excellent colleague, London correspondent Manori Ravindran). So far, weāve examined the post-strike pitching and buying atmosphere, the state of reality TV, and the truth about what is going on in the job market. Itās been a huge hit so far.
Today, Strikegeist is being offered as a standalone weekly version of Series Business (new name and all) at a much lower price than a full Ankler subscription. At $49.99 a year, or $5.99 a month, thatās a savings of $100 off a full annual Ankler subscription.
You will receive the exact same Series Business newsletter as The Ankler audience within 24 hours after it first posts on The Ankler.
(To note, if you already are a paid subscriber to The Ankler, Series Business is included in your Ankler subscription.)
Separately, for my Strikegeist loyalists ā youāll be privy to bonus exclusive content only appearing here, and Iāll offer free access to newsletters when IATSE negotiations get started in March. Youāll get the latest Hollywood labor updates here, and as always, you can reach out to me at elaine@theankler.com.
Thanks again for reading. Below is my interview with FX boss John Landgraf in the Series Business column as it appeared in full today for paid subscribers of The Ankler. Youāll be prompted below to keep reading with a paid subscription, and if you choose to do so, I would be thrilled to keep informing you into this next chapter.
Happy Monday, Series Business readers ā and welcome to the hundreds of new subscribers to this newsletter after our analysis of the TV jobs landscape last week. Weāve got a strong lineup today: My Q&A with the Mayor of TV, FX head John Landgraf, plus my new colleague, London correspondent Manori Ravindran, delivers her dispatch on MIPTV.
On stage at the Television Critics Association winter press tour in Pasadena on Friday, Landgraf told a room full of reporters that Peak TV ā a phrase he coined in 2015 ā has indeed peaked, sliding 14 percent to 516 scripted series in 2023 from 600 in 2022, by FXās count.Ā
In a candid 1:1 chat after his exec session, Landgraf went deeper on FXās unique position and the challenges of the broader market. He got real about:
How slow pitching and development is now, and why
The ceiling on U.S. demand for premium TV storytelling
Which FX shows get 90 percent of their viewership on Hulu
āRetrograde motionā in a āscaling downā TV industry
Why FXās Shogun wonāt be a ātwo-screen showā
His appetite for risk at the moment
Why he wouldnāt advise his Gen Z sons to go into TV
Hereās our back-and-forth, lightly condensed and edited for clarity:Ā
Elaine Low: I'm hearing that pitching has been a little slow to pick up after the strikes and the holidays. What are you and your team seeing?Ā
John Landgraf: We definitely hear pitches, and we buy things on the open market.
But we develop a lot internally. So we've been really active in terms of development. I think that the team was surprised that there weren't more pitches, and I still don't really know whether that was the agencies holding things back and working on packaging things, or whether it had to do with the sense there wasn't a strong appetite at that point [and] they wanted to wait.Ā
We're just experiencing a really big pullback. I think there'll be an active selling and buying period coming up. Like, it's still a really big industry, there's still a big appetite for projects. But you know, when an industry is actually scaling down, you can feel the sort of retrograde motion. And you can just feel that right now.
EL: By all accounts, thereās a pullback in scripted. How does that impact the way you're looking at things in terms of ordering and volume?
JL: We're actually really in an active phase. We have just a lot of turnover on our roster right now. And this is where I feel incredibly fortunate that we were bought by Disney and that we're part of Disney and Hulu and a global streaming service, because thereās still really an appetite. And we have as much or more resources as we've ever had. So I'm incredibly grateful for that, because most of the channels and/or brands based on channels have struggled to make the transition to streaming.Ā
EL: The writers and studio executives that I talk to say āwe're, creatively, in a very risk-averse environment right now.ā Do you feel that's an accurate characterization?
JL: I think that probably is an accurate characterization. It depends on where you're at in the brand ā if you're at HBO, or youāre at FX, risk is inherent. Your brand won't sustain if you aim for the middle, right? Whereas I think if you're a really big, broad platform, trying to reach the largest possible audience, arguably, you should aim for the middle, right?Ā
So there was always a differentiation between the broadest channels, which are broadcast networks, and then the narrower brands, whether that was Comedy Central, or HBO, or FX. And I think that same divide will continue to exist in streaming between the broad platform brands ā the Amazons, the Apples, the Netflixes ā and the brands that are trying to go for a more specific vibe.Ā
People are really enjoying the instant gratification that the internet provides. But I think that instant gratification isn't always as gratifying as gratification that takes some time, some energy, some focus. And that's a challenging thing for best-in-class sort of adult, dense, carefully modulated storytelling. And we have a show coming up in a month called Shogun, and you just won't be able to enjoy the show if you don't watch it, if you don't pay attention to it. It's not a two-screen show.Ā
It's tempting, I think, to make shows that can be watched with one eye for an audience that has their other eye on the phone, because that's the reality of how a lot of people consume media right now. But of course, I want to make things that have to be paid attention to. And FX makes shows that are fun hangs, that are easy watches. They're not all hard watches. But I think a lot of the best films and the best storytelling take some level of attention.Ā
I don't have data on this, I'm just estimating ā Casey Bloys would know the reality to it ā but my sense of it is that even at its very best, HBO never got above about 40 million subscribers, right? Maybe a third of the U.S. audience watched it with any regularity. That's a reality of where the demand lies for what I would call āpremium television.āĀ
FX has its entire legacy and history on Hulu. It's about 2,300 episodes. Plus, we make a lot of new shows. And we reach around 60 percent of the Hulu subscriber base over the course of a year ā which is pretty good from my standpoint, because it's a big world and people have a lot of different appetites. And for some people, dense scripted dramas are not what they're looking for.Ā
EL: You said on stage that the majority of FX viewing is happening on Hulu and not on FX linear these days. What was the inflection point for that?
JL: Well, for example, I just talked to Noah Hawley this morning about the difference between Fargo Season 4 and Fargo Season 5ā¦