We all know that everything eventually comes to an end. Although if you grow up as much of a Red Sox fan as Chuck Saftler did, you might not necessarily believe that truth as much as the average person does.
His beloved Sawx went 86 years before they won the 2004 World Series–a fact that was front and center amidst the entire FOX and FX executive team as they finally reached their promised land the same autumn that I took the plunge with my second marriage. Saftler and his lovely wife Colleen were especially ebullient at the ceremony, mere days after they completed their October for the ages. Chuck shared how for as happy as he was, it paled in comparison to the joy that his octogenerian father was feeling–a winsome and endearing gentleman that we had met several years earlier who was as proud a parent as I had ever seen. We toasted our mutual high points and he was at last finally able to forgive myself and our mutual boss Peter Liguori for having the audacity to be Mets fans.
Chuck took even greater pride and joy from the fact that he had preceded Liguori and myself at FX–in fact, he preceded practically everyone not named Murdoch. Which makes the news that VARIETY’s Michael Schneider broke yesterday all the more sobering:
Longtime TV exec Chuck Saftler, who helped build FX into the powerhouse it is – having joined the company in 1993, prior to its before its June 1994 launch date – is departing the company after nearly 33 years. The well-regarded Saftler most recently served as head of acquisitions for Disney networks including ABC, Freeform, FX and Nat Geo. Before that, he headed business operations for ABC, Freeform and FX Networks, while leading library and acquisitions for the group’s networks. He was also FX Networks president of programming strategy.
“After more than 32 years with Disney, I have made the decision to step down from my role as I consider a new professional chapter,” Saftler wrote in a memo to staffers on Thursday. “It’s hard to put into words what these three decades have meant to me. I had the extraordinary opportunity to help build FX from its earliest days and then to take on new leadership roles across Disney Entertainment Television. I’m incredibly proud of what we built, the stories we told and, most of all, the people I had the privilege of doing it with.”
Saftler first helped launch FX when it was focused on live, original programming under the “TV made fresh daily” banner. Soon, the network shifted gears and focused on acquisitions of popular dramas like “The X-Files,” and then turned to the original programming arena. Meanwhile, Saftler built up the network’s acquired film and TV libraries. He also helped launch the Fox Movie Channel, where he was general manager.
Chuck began his career in research much as I did, first with KTLA and then with Columbia Pictures Television. He was therefore my most informed and challenging internal client, equally as passionate about his opinions and as determined to use data as a tool to advance the network and, frankly, all of our fortunes. He was especially innovative when it came to how and why he bought movies–a skill set that became all the more necessary shortly after I joined the team and the three-pronged primetime strategy of running debatably compatible off-network hours BUFFY THE VAMPIRE SLATER, ALLY MC BEAL and THE PRACTICE fared way worse than even Bill Buckner’s fielding did in the 10th inning of 1986’s Game 6. Those reruns were supposed to tee up audience for the aggressive slate of originals that Liguori was seeking to launch and had pivoted the network’s resources exclusively toward. Meanwhile, our competitors–especially the ones such as USA and TNT that were also affiliated with movie studios–had locked up cable rights to the majority of viable titles and were cleaning our clock ratings-wise while also providing tonnage of both audience and inventory to solidify their own efforts.
Saftler deftly changed the landscape by aggressively pursuing titles that fit his specific definitions of what he believed could work, pivoting as necessary when the demographics disparities in supporting the likes of THE SHIELD, NIP/TUCK, IT’S ALWAYS SUNNY IN PHILADELPHIA and SONS OF ANARCHY demanded such flexibility. For as much as those shows and others ultimately defined what FX became the likelihood they would have been sampled at all would have been much lower had he not found titles that were capable of appealing to movie-watchers on those other networks–not to mention pay cable. He challenged me and my staff to look deeply into those opportunities and availabilities with complex custom studies that only someone with his background would have known to exist.
At times we’d clash–sometimes forcefully, especially when I’d be getting pushback from other stakeholders seeking solutions more to their liking and hoping I could shift his POV. More often than not, Chuck would win. And given the reality of what we all knew deep down was propping us all up and the ensuing results, we knew he was right.
DEADLINE’s intrepid Nellie Andreeva penned an especially thorough chronicling of Saftler’s numerous accomplishments yesterday that’s well worth the detailed read. Andreeva pointed out a few things I had not already known or somehow missed, including the fact that Saftler was now reporting into a Disney executive named Jimmy Zasowski, who had risen through their ranks at about the same time that I left the FX-verse–or about roughly halfway through Saftler’s overall tenure. I do know how those things go, and it’s a tribute to Saftler’s character that he included him in the heartfelt memo he sent to his team yesterday.
Per Andreeva, Zaslowski was corporately perfunctory in his assessment:
“Chuck has no doubt left an indelible mark on the business and his contributions have shaped the team in lasting ways,” Zasowski said.
Fortunately, his other bosses–and even the intrepid one herself–chose more effusive and spot-on praise:
“Chuck’s enduring commitment and countless contributions over the past three decades have had a profound impact on the company,” Landgraf and OConnell said in a joint statement. “Chuck was a part of FX from the very beginning and played a defining role in shaping and strengthening the network at every stage. His intelligence, humility, and remarkably good judgment have made him a trusted voice, and his influence will be felt for years to come.”
Always unassuming, sitting in the back of the room — but often the smartest person in the room — Saftler became known as the guy who can predict the future of television, constantly analyzing industry trends to figure out what would come next.
Those descriptions and adjectives are testimonies to people who actually knew Saftler at least as well as I did. They were as deserved as the ones I and others heaped on our longtime comrade in arms John Solberg when he left the building last summer. That musing was one of my most well-read last year, and I suspect this one has the potential to do same. Solberg and I would sometimes joke that when the doors finally shut on FX that since Chuck was among the first to turn on its lights he’d probably be the one left to turn them off.
That’s not exactly how it panned out–indeed, FX will go on. His replacement–the impressively titled Sean Cocchia EVP, Global Entertainment Networks, Research and Business Operations, Disney Entertainment Television–has already been named. And the day before that this news went down we also learned that the gang from SONS OF ANARCHY is making a triumphant return of their own, as THE HOLLYWOOD REPORTER’s James Hibbert reported:
FX has ordered a wildly original “meta-thriller” spinoff from SoA star Charlie Hunnam. The limited series Legends will reunite the original cast of the hit motorcycle club crime drama, only this time they’ll be playing fictionalized versions of themselves. The official description: “When the cast of Sons of Anarchy reunites at a fan convention after more than a decade, the line between life and art blurs as the fractured brotherhood finds itself up against a real-world threat more dangerous than anything they ever faced in their show.”
No, it’s not quite the OG version of itself, but then again, neither is FX these days. And in the wake of the departures of Solberg and now Saftler and the expressed desire of Disney top brass to pivot more and more of its resources–even ESPN–to the Disney Plus hub and the fact that theme parks and revenue champ Josh D’Amaro won the internal beauty contest to succeed Bob Iger over Landgraf and O’Connell’s boss Dana Walden, it makes one wonder who will indeed be left to turn out the lights. And that fact that the headline for Hibberd’s piece reminds that LEGENDS will, like most FX content, air concurrently on Hulu makes one further wonder if the decision to turn out FX’s lights entirely is already being plotted by folks like D’Amaro, Zaslowski and Cocchia.
At least Chuck gets to depart with his head held high, his own legendary status assured and with deft timing that leaves open the chance he can follow his Sawx to yet another World Series. We should all be able to write as satisfying an ending. 33 years of brilliance and dedication earns one that right. As they say in Boston, Cheers.
Until next time…