FX Chief John Landgraf continued to point out the perils of living in the age of “peak TV,” at his semi-annual and always news-making appearance at Winter TCA in Pasadena, Calif., on Saturday.

FX’s creative success in the “TV arms race” is made even more impressive based on the network’s smaller payroll, Landgraf points out, defending his turf against the massive money coming from Silicon Valley in TV.

“I think it’s weird to reference yourself as the Oakland A’s playing Moneyball, because [we’re working with] literally 100 million dollars, approaching a billion dollars…but it’s Moneyball. We’re competing against payrolls a la the Oakland A’s [versus the] New York Yankees that are three to four times our size,” said Landgraf.

“FX’s earnings alone are many times many times higher than Netflix’s globally. The reality is…because there’s a perception that Silicon Valley will take over everything, therefore they don’t have to be held to the same standards as earnings because they’re buying the future. We have to return a profit to our shareholders. Nobody pays attention to the profitability of our competitors. Amazon gets a pass too. That’s really difficult. We’ve lost shows just because we had competitors willing to pay more. We made an aggressive offer for True Detective and Master of None, but in both cases they overwhelmed us in shock and awe levels of money and commitment.”

Landgraf continued to talk about the struggles FX and the industry as a whole faces.

“I’ve been doing this for 12 years, part of being in this business is losing…you just can’t win them all. Essentially, what are our advantages? Careful level of curation, and human connection in the nature of relationship with artists,” said Landgraf.

“People like working at our channel and like our brand. We’re not unique in that regard, AMC has seen some things that I failed to see. If you got a lot of at bats, you’re going to find some things that you’re competitors don’t see. It’s one of those things where you just accept the competitive realities you’re in, and try to compete. [We’re] gonna have to do our own way.”

In December, FX tallied all the series on TV and came up with “The List” featuring 409 scripted shows. By January, it was 412.

“Counting TV series is like counting lemmings. Hopefully they won’t run off a cliff,” said Landgraf. “You can’t even count how many shows accurately there are so many.”

Landgraf doesn’t think “Peak TV” is necessarily sustainable.

“I think we all have a stake in saying really positive things about the business. I think there are people that are uncomfortable even debating about if there is too much TV,” he said.

“From a business standpoint, it’s hard to launch shows, it’s harder for consumers to find shows. There’s too much of everything. Not enough human attention for all the data, articles, TV shows, content. What I’m citing is that I think content creation is in an economic bubble. This year or next year might be peak TV. I could well be wrong about timing. My sense is that there will be more shows in 2016 than there was in 2015. There’s a reasonable prospect that there’s fewer in 2017 than 2016.”

“There’s something wonky,” Landgraf said. “There are more shows being made that can be sustained economically.”

Landgraf points to Netflix going from zero shows to 55 adult series (and 45 children’s series) in just three years as evidence.

Given that they don’t make a “significant amount of profit…something’s gotta give eventually,” said Landgraf. “I’m not foreseeing a collapse but a contraction. There’s still going to be a lot of TV for the foreseeable future.”

He, like most critics, is still peeved by the lack of transparency offered by Netflix in the form of ratings, and is unsatisfied by NBC’s recent report.

“I think it’s ridiculous that we don’t have usage numbers on Netflix,” he said. “There’s probably some data, some information that is a national security issue so the apparatus can keep secret. I don’t feel the same way about TV data. It’s like sports scores, it should be public. It will be at some point. They should be on the same playing field.”

While FX is the number-one cable channel among adult viewers, its average is down 13% year-over-year, a similar decrease seen across the board for their competitors, he stated.

Still, Landgraf is proud of the fact that the network’s shows were featured on 146 year-end best-of lists, with 280 mentions, just one more than HBO, which had 279. The top four brands (HBO, FX, Netflix, AMC) made up 52% of the mentions, and the top ten brands make up 84% of the quality shows mentioned by TV critics.

Some of that “erosion” was balanced by FXNow, their streaming counterpart, with 12.4 million downloads across all platforms, up 75% year-over-year. Non-linear viewing of FX’s shows have doubled or tripled thanks to FXNow.

And after two years in business, FXX is ranked 28th among 108 cable channels, moving up three positions and posting significant gains this past year, increasing 19%.

But FX soldiers on, driven to match its creative successes of 2015.

The fourth season of The Americans premieres March 16 on FX at 10 PM ET/PT, and its stylish new poster was revealed.

In its final season, The League posted ratings increases, and the same can be said for its other comedies, like It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia chugging along through season 11, which will become the second longest-running comedy in TV history next season.

Season 7 of Archer returns March 31.

The third installment of Fargo is coming in 2017, and Noah Hawley’s critically beloved show will take place in 2010 this time around, with at least one familiar character showing up in some fashion.

We’re going to see another show from Noah Hawley even sooner. After signing an overall deal with FX, Noah Hawley’s first announced new project was Legion, FX’s first series with Marvel, in the not-so-merry world of mutants.

The series will not be in the same continuity as the X-Men film franchise, featuring a “parallel universe” where the U.S. government has just become aware of the existence of mutants, and the general public does not know about them.

The show hasn’t been ordered to series yet, but FX’s history indicates that it’s a safe bet.

“I would anticipate Legion would go on air sometime in 2016,” Landgraf said.“The vast majority of our pilots go to series.”

Tracy Morgan is returning to TV in an untitled comedy pilot, written by Jordan Peele and John Carcieri (Eastbound & Down), also executive produced by Eric Tannenbaum (Two and a Half Men) and Joel Zadak (Key and Peele).

The series follows a career criminal returning to society after 15 years in prison.

Academy Award-nominee Tom Hardy (The Revenant) is executive producing and starring in the historical action drama Taboo as an adventurer challenging the East India trading company. The show is produced by FXP and BBC, and is shooting in London now.

“The process of making TV can be much more fluid and can continue to evolve,” said Landgraf. “I want to follow the voice and schedule of creative people. Rather than fitting into predetermined business structure where they have to be creative on demand. To me that’s a recipe for mediocrity. I’d rather make better shows on a more discursive time frame.”

[The Americans poster comes courtesy of FX]

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