John Landgraf: More than half of FX writing staff are women, POC

Pose

More than half of US cable channel FX’s writing staff are women or people of colour (POC), according to the channel’s boss John Landgraf.

Speaking on Saturday (26 October) at the Institute on Entertainment Law and Business, hosted by USC Gould School of Law and the Beverly Hills Bar Association, FX boss Landgraf estimated the figure of women and POC on the channel’s writing staff across its slate of programmes was close to 60%.

FX’s slate includes the likes of Pose, American Crime Story and What We Do In The Shadows.

Landgraf said the representative writing roster came alongside a more diverse directing crop as well. More than 50% of directors across FX shows in the recent TV cycle were women, he said.

According to Variety, during the 2014/15 TV season, just 12% of FX’s directors were women or POC – a statistic that rendered Landgraf “really embarrassed”, he said during the event.

The exec added that the low figure had been symbolic of a “failure of leadership on [his] part” and suggested that the boost in representation in subsequent years had meant to correct that season’s performance.

Most recently, Landgraf – one of the most outspoken execs in the US TV landscape – said his channel “embraces” the distribution potential afforded by Hulu, which will eventually come to host programmes from FX.