FX Network president John Landgraf speaks during the FX portion of the 2012 Winter TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa on January 15, 2012 in Pasadena, California.

 By: Valerie Milano – Pasadena, CA (Hollywood Today) 1/16/12

            On the last day of the Television Critics Association winter press tour, FX’s John Solberg started off the channel’s executive session by walking through what lies ahead for the first half of the year. On Tuesday, Justified begins its third season and has thirteen weeks scheduled, according to Solberg. Archer moves into its third season as well, with ten episodes planned. New animated comedy Unsupervised will follow Archer, and on Fridays Ultimate Fighting Championship begins on FX. Solberg also noted that FX will have a “new competition sports reality series” called The Ultimate Fighter Live. Other highlights Solberg mentioned included Strangely Uplifting, which stars Russell Brand, Anger Management starring Charlie Sheen, and the return of Louie and Wilfred.  All who were on panels on this final day of 13.

Comedian Russell Brand of the television show "Russell Brand" speaks during the FX portion of the 2012 Winter TCA Press Tour at The Langham Huntington Hotel and Spa on January 15, 2012 in Pasadena, California. (January 14, 2012 - Photo by Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images North America)

            After running through the schedule, Solberg introduced FX Networks’ president and general manager John Landgraf, who began by discussing FX’s successes. “All of our returning series grew in every adult demo and in total viewers: male, female, young, old, every category,” he said. “Four seasons in, Sons of Anarchy put up the highest ratings ever in FX’s history and averaged more than 9 million viewers a week, inclusive of repeats, DVR and VOD,” he continued. “The Season 4 premiere episode of Sons was the most-watched single telecast in FX history. Seven seasons in, It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia put up FX’s highest ratings ever for a comedy series in adults 18 to 49 and averaged 4.6 million weekly viewers.” He also discussed the success of American Horror Story and Wilfred.

            Before taking questions, Landgraf also noted that this year is the tenth anniversary of FX’s first TCA panel, which was for The Shield.

            Landgraf addressed the question of how Anger Management got to FX by explaining, “It was just a regular pitch. They pitched it to a number of networks and channels. And I would say I walked into the pitch as skeptical as you might imagine I would be. Charlie was there. And, you know, as was the creator and the showrunner. And it was just a really excellent pitch.  Some of us saw Charlie Sheen last weekend @ the FOX party.  We saw a very different Charlie than we ever had seen in the press, through the whole end of his relationship with Two and a Half Men.” 

            Landgraf defended Charlie Sheen’s new role on Anger Management, which involves positive relationships with women by saying, “I think what Maureen [Ryan] feels is that Charlie Sheen shouldn’t have a place in popular culture anymore, that his crimes are such that he should be, you know, banished to Siberia. And I understand that she feels really strongly about that, and I understand why she feels really strongly about that. You know, for me, I think that if Charlie wants to get his house in order, and that encompasses his issues with substance abuse and his relationships to his own family, and it also encompasses his desire to have greater consciousness about his public persona, and he wants do a show in which he as an actor has more complicatedly positive relationships with women — and, you know, the character is raising an adolescent daughter, a 13-year-old girl. So he as a father is struggling to foster for a daughter a positive self-esteem and sense of what it is to be a woman in society and how to transect the difficulties of adolescence and grow — my opinion is that that could be a really good thing, not only for Charlie, but it could be a good thing for society. And, you know, I believe in redemption.”

            Moving on to American Horror Story and plans for a new cast, Landgraf responded, “Ryan Murphy’s already looking for that cast. He’s already in active conversations with new people. And also two or possibly three of the existing cast members, some series regulars as well as guest cast, may be continuing next year, although they would be playing entirely new roles.”

                        Looking ahead, Landgraf offered that FX would like to have four or five dramas on the air and that they plan to launch two more within the next year, adding, “The truth of the matter is we’re at the point in size where we need to launch a new successful drama every year, every 18 months just like a broadcast network and a new comedy every year, every 18 months.”

            FX did not, according to Landgraf, pick up the pilot of Powers. “We went back, and Chuck Eglee, who had written that, did a fairly substantial rewrite that would require pretty extensive reshoots of the pilot,” he said. “And right now we’re in the process of deciding whether to pull the trigger on that reshoot. And I’ll say about Powers, I really adore the underlying material, and also Brian Bendis, who’s been a fantastic partner on the project and has been with it from the beginning. This is as difficult an adaptation as I’ve ever worked on.”

            Landgraf closed the panel by discussing the boxing and fighting programming being added to FX. “FX has had sports in the past,” he began. “We’ve had NASCAR. We had college football this year. We’ve had professional baseball on the air. So the way that FX relates to FOX Sports is that FOX Sports is really the entity that goes out and makes major sports deals. FX doesn’t make those deals, doesn’t drive those deals. So if it’s an NFL deal or an MLB deal or a NASCAR deal, that’s David Hill and Eric Shanks and Randy Freer who are making that deal.” Landgraf continued, “And then there’s a vast amount of programming, I mean, thousands of hours of programming going on Fuel. And Fuel is essentially being rebranded as much more of an MMA network. That said, we were really thrilled to get this content.”

            HT asked if he will be watching The Ultimate Fighter Live every week, Landgraf replied, “I watch everything on the channel. I do. It’s my job.”