FX Boss John Landgraf Says Lack of Streaming Hurt ‘Impeachment’

Fans of “American Crime Story” were perplexed when “Impeachment,” the newest installment of the show, was not available to stream on Hulu after its linear premiere other FX titles these days. Network chairman John Landgraf says that fact may have hurt the show’s standing in the cultural conversation.

“I think that not being on a streaming platform played to ‘Impeachment’s’ disadvantage,” Landgraf said in an interview with Variety. “I think that many more people prefer to consume scripted programming on streaming platforms now and it was not on a streaming platform. That was a function of a deal that was made a long time ago with Netflix where they have the subscription video on demand rights, meaning they have the ability to not have us put the show on any streaming platform other than an FX Plus, which no longer exists.”

Landgraf added, however, that the show’s linear ratings were in line with previous entries in the series “People v. OJ Simpson” and “The Assassination of Gianni Versace.”

Landgraf also addressed the ending of “Atlanta,” the critically-acclaimed FX comedy series that will wrap up after four seasons this fall. He said that ending the series at this point was creator and star Donald Glover’s idea, given his already packed schedule.

“[Donald] sort of built a big plan for his life, because he had so many things going on,” he said. “From playing Lando Calrissian, to being in ‘Lion King,’ to putting out an album, to touring. And, obviously, he also made another deal at Amazon to do other things.”

Interestingly, Landgraf went on to say that no one at FX saw any finished cuts of Season 3 episodes of the show for a long time given that they shot Seasons 3 and 4 back to back.

“We didn’t see the third season episodes for a long time after they finished production, because they didn’t do any post-production on season three, because they were doing all the production in season four,” he said. “They basically shot all 20 episodes before they edited any of them.”

But while Glover may be leaving FX behind, Landgraf is still high on the network’s relationship with Ryan Murphy, the mind behind the network’s hit anthology “American Horror Story” as well as other shows like “American Crime Story” and upcoming shows like “American Love Story” and “American Sports Story.” Murphy’s current overall deal with Netflix is due to end in 2023, and there is much speculation that he could return to his former home at 20th Television.

“Ryan is pretty busy at the moment doing stuff for Netflix, where his overall deal is,” Landgraf said. “And it’ll be interesting to see where he lands next. I’d love to see him come back to us and come back to Disney. His deal was always with Dana Walden and 20th, not at FX, but obviously,it enabled an enormous amount of really, really good programming that Ryan and Dana and we made together. We’ll see. It would be great,…