The FX channel can be a rugged place, full of prostitutes, charlatans, spies, bikers and thugs. But it’s a nice place if you are trying to make a show.
How come? Because the guy who is greenlighting the shows, John Landgraf, the president and general manager of FX Networks, spent many years making them himself, or at least trying to make them.
He learned early on that the guidance he received from the networks was not going to lead to remarkable television.
“I always got the same dumb note from the networks. ‘Can you make the character more likable?’ ” he recalled last week in a phone interview. “Not make them more exciting, more compelling, more interesting, no, it was always make them more likable.”
Mr. Landgraf, who worked as a network executive at NBC during the ’90s and had a hand in “Friends,” “ER” and “The West Wing,” went on to form a television production company with Danny DeVito. He had 53 projects in development from 1999 to the early 2000s — nine that became pilots, six that were made into shows and one, “Reno 911!” that made it beyond a single season, albeit on Comedy Central.
“It was crazy-making,” he said.
He became convinced that network television was broken — that in an effort to make characters more likable, the industry made television that not anyone much liked.
Mr. Landgraf’s turn on the other side of the table came in 2004 when he became president of FX, the basic cable channel owned by News Corporation. He inherited “Nip/Tuck” and “The Shield,” but they were aging and he needed to replace them, so he went on a spree — of saying yes.
“We wanted to adapt our process to what the creatives needed and have a more efficient outcome,” he said. “We write a check to fund the production and they send us the shows. By trusting the people you work with — sharing the authority — and being willing to fail, things have gone pretty well for us.”
He said yes to a lot of dark and spicy fare — it is not as lurid as pay cable can be, but it is only technically less naked. And it is clearly intended for adults.
With that in mind, he said yes to the comedian Louis C.K., who had been flailing on HBO and then tried to come up with something that networks would swallow. In exchange for producing a pilot for almost nothing, Louis C.K. had complete freedom. The result was a brutally funny mash-up of sitcom and stand-up that clicked for FX.
He also said yes to “Archer,” an animated period-spy series — nothing about those three things says television gold — about an agent with high testosterone and a low I.Q. It contains some of the most remarkable, densely funny writing on television.
“It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia” has improbably lived, going into syndication with, you guessed it, the least likable group of characters you could conjure. Last week, I happened to see the comedian W. Kamau Bell in New York and thought, this guy is funny, somebody should give him a show. Somebody already had, on FX.
Mr. Landgraf spent money on “Justified,” a Southern gothic inspired by Elmore Leonard that featured a laconic, trigger-happy marshal chasing charismatic, speechifying villains who belong in the television pantheon. He gave the go ahead to “American Horror Story,” a lurid, scary weekly trip to the dark side. And he said yes to “Sons of Anarchy,” a wildly popular drama that would be described, in industry speak, as Hamlet on Harleys.
Mr. Landgraf is not just a yes man. He has shunned reality shows because, as he succinctly explained, “I don’t like them.”
He has had his failures, including “Dirt,” “The Riches” and “Terriers.”
“In our industry, shows are ‘not renewed,’ never ‘canceled.’ ” he said. “I’ve canceled shows and I think you have to own those failures to learn from them.”
Mr. Landgraf is treasured by writers on the beat because, in an industry built on euphemism, he says what he thinks.
It’s not that the rest of the industry lacks taste, it’s just most are so busy living in fear that a creative risk seems out of the question.
