FX+ is growing while staying tethered to pay TV

Two and a half years ago, FX Networks CEO John Landgraf indicated the network was in no hurry to go over the top. "We need to fix the existing business model," Landgraf said at the Television Critics Association Press Tour in January 2016.The OTT landscape looks a little different than it did at the beginning of 2016, though. HBO Now had more than 5 million subscribers as of February 2018, according to Bloomberg News; Showtime's OTT offering has around 2.5 million. Hulu passed 20 million subscribers this year for its three products (limited ads, ad-free on-demand, and live TV).Enter FX+, the company's ad-free streaming service. FX+ launched on Comcast's Xfinity platform in September of 2017, becoming available to 21 million Comcast customers. A little less than a year later, in August 2018, FX+ became available for customers of most of the other big pay TV players.