FX’s John Landgraf Gives Update on Ryan Murphy Shows, Breaks Down ‘American Horror Story’ Viewership

FX Chairman John Landgraf has often said that as long as Ryan Murphy wants to keep making American Horror Story, new seasons are going to be greenlit. And at the Television Critics Association’s 2023 winter tour, he confirmed to Decider that’s still the case. According to the FX head, American Horror Story has been experiencing something rare for a scripted drama that recently released its 11th season — recovery.

“I think the viewership for everything on linear channels has been declining. That’s just not where particularly young people are, and a pretty young audience tends to watch scripted programming,” Landgraf said. “So thank goodness we’re able to put it on Hulu because we were able to really recover. Hulu has a younger medium age – I think 15 to 20 years younger than FX – and more female. So we were able to recover access to a whole lot of the audience.”

Landgraf also revealed that even though American Horror Stories‘ viewership is “not quite as robust” as its predecessor, it “does really well” on Hulu. The Chairman of FX Networks and FX Productions pointed to the series’ status as a Hulu exclusive as a possible reason for its lower viewership. But in spite of those lower numbers, the two-season spinoff has become a way to diversify viewership.

“Part of what we see with that is you might have one audience that absolutely loves ‘Dollhouse’ – that’s for them. But then another audience likes a different genre,” Landgraf said. “Whereas Horror Story is one subgenre within any given year, Horror Stories is multiple different subgenres. So we sort of see different audiences depending on the episode.”

American Horror Story and American Horror Stories are far from the only Ryan Murphy projects that FX has on its calendar. There’s also the second season of Feud, which will focus on Truman Capote and his band of socialites. Landgraf recently read the finale of this season, written by Jon Robin Baitz, and FX Co-President Gina Balian called the dailies “fantastic.” There’s also American Sports Story, which will focus on the rise and fall of NFL player Aaron Hernandez in its first season, and American Love Story, which will follow the romance of John F. Kennedy Jr. and Carolyn Bessette.

Despite all of those projects, Landgraf was unable to confirm whether or not FX or Disney are planning to reclaim the super-producer once his exclusive deal with Netflix comes to an end. “Those talks — were they happening — wouldn’t actually be at our level. It would be with the company as a whole,” Landgraf said. “We still work with him. We’re making another season of Feud right now – Truman Capote and the swans. And we mentioned American Sports Story, so there’s been a really active process with him. As for where his next deal will land, I don’t know.”