By Valerie Milano
HOLLYWOOD, CA (Hollywood Today) 8/5/10 — At Tuesday’s executive session, President and General Manager of FX Network, John Landgraf gave us a little insight into what’s going on at the cable network summed up in a nutshell: “The League,” which has been renewed for season 2 and will be coming back in the fall; “Archer,” which has been renewed for season 2 and will be coming back in January. “Louie,” which we just renewed for season 2. “Justified,” which has been renewed for season 2, will be coming back next February-ish. And then we have two more dramas, “Terriers,” which is premiering this fall, and “Lights Out,” which is premiering in January.”
“Justified”, the very popular western drama had the best ratings during premiere week on FX in many years. Emmy winning “Mad Men” has increased viewership each year it’s been on the air.
Several pilots premiering this fall on FX, “Outlaw Country” starring Mary Steenburgen and a comedy based on an Australian series, “Wilfred”. “I just talked this morning about the pilot we’re doing with Ben Garant and Tom Lennon. We now have four — we had one comedy a year ago. We now have four.” Landgraf continued discussing network plans, “It’s been a really big initiative for us to not only be a drama channel and a drama brand, but to be a comedy brand. Part of the reason you’ve seen such an expansion is we haven’t reduced the number of dramas we’re producing. We’ve just expanded the number of comedies, and we’re ahead of schedule in terms of where we wanted to be with comedy expansion, but we’re not done yet.”
And just to end on the familiar theme for the week, Landgraf closed saying, “So I’ll tell you that Peter Rice told me that I could deny that Steve McPherson was becoming a judge on “American Idol.”