Fox Broadcasting Company
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Fox Broadcasting Company | |
 |
|
| Type | Broadcast television network |
|---|---|
| Country |  United States |
| Availability | National; also distributed in  Canada,  Mexico, the Caribbean and certain other Latin American countries. |
| Founder | Rupert Murdoch, Barry Diller |
| Owner | News Corporation |
| Key people | Peter Liguori - Chairman, Entertainment Kevin Reilly - President, Entertainment |
| Launch date | October 9, 1986 |
| Past names | Briefly abbreviated "FBC" |
| Website | www.fox.com |
The Fox Broadcasting Company, usually referred to as just Fox (the company itself prefers the capitalized version FOX), is a television network in the United States. It is owned by Fox Entertainment Group, part of Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation. Since its launch on October 9, 1986, Fox has grown from an upstart "netlet" to the highest-rated broadcast network among young adults.
The Fox name has been used on other entertainment channels internationally that are affiliated with News Corp., including in Australia (FOX8), Japan, Italy, Serbia, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, South America, and Turkey although these do not necessarily air the same programming as the U.S. network. Most viewers in Canada have access to at least one affiliate of the U.S. network.
The network is named after sister company 20th Century Fox, and indirectly for producer William Fox, who founded one of the movie studio's predecessors.
Contents |
[edit] History
[edit] Launch
The groundwork for the launch of the Fox network began in March 1985 with News Corporation's $250 million purchase of 50% of TCF Holdings, the parent company of the 20th Century Fox movie studio. Six months later, in September, Murdoch agreed to pay $325 million to acquire the rest of the studio. In May 1985, News Corp agreed to pay $1.55 billion to acquire independent television stations in six major U.S. media markets from John Kluge's company, Metromedia: KTTV in Los Angeles, WFLD in Chicago, KRLD in Dallas (which was renamed KDAF), KRIV in Houston, WNEW in New York (which was renamed WNYW) and WTTG in Washington, D.C. These first six stations, broadcasting to 22 percent of the nation's households, became known as the Fox Television Stations Group. Except for KDAF (which was sold to Tribune in 1995 and joined The WB after Fox affiliated with, then later bought VHF station KDFW), all of these stations are still part of Fox today. Clarke Ingram, who maintains a memorial website to the failed DuMont Television Network, has suggested that Fox is a revival of DuMont, since Metromedia was a successor to the DuMont corporation and the Metromedia TV stations formed the nucleus of the Fox network.[1] Indeed, WNYW (then known as WABD) and WTTG were the key stations in the DuMont network.
In October 1985, Murdoch announced his intentions to form an independent television system which would compete with the three major U.S. television networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC). He planned to use the combination of the Fox studios and the former Metromedia stations both to produce programming and distribute it. Organizational plans for the network were held off until the Metromedia acquisitions cleared regulatory hurdles in March 1986. In January 1986, Murdoch said of his planned network, "We at Fox at the moment are deeply involved in working to put shape and form on original programs. These will be shows with no outer limits. The only rules that we will enforce on these programs is they must have taste, they must be engaging, they must be entertaining and they must be original."
On May 6, 1986, Murdoch, along with newly-hired Fox CEO and chairman Barry Diller and comedian Joan Rivers, announced plans for "FBC" or the "Fox Broadcasting Company", with WNYW in New York as the flagship station, to be launched with a daily late-night talk show program, The Late Show Starring Joan Rivers. When Fox was launched on October 9, 1986, it was broadcast to 96 stations reaching more than 80 percent of the nation's households. Fox had lined up 90 former independent stations as affiliates in addition to its original six seed stations. By contrast, ABC, CBS and NBC each had between 210 and 215 affiliates reaching more than 97 percent of the nation's households. Despite broadcasting only one show, the network was busy producing new programs with plans to gradually add prime-time programming one night at a time.
Rivers would be gone from the show in 1987, with various guest hosts taking over for a few years afterward; one notable face was Arsenio Hall, who would later front his own late-night talk show to great success, albeit not on Fox.
[edit] 1980s
From the beginning, Fox portrayed itself as a somewhat edgy, irreverent, youth-oriented network compared to its rivals. Its first prime-time shows, which debuted on Sunday nights beginning April 5, 1987, were a comedy about a dysfunctional family (Married... with Children) and a variety series (The Tracey Ullman Show). The former would become a major hit for the network, airing for 11 seasons, while the latter would spawn the longest-running sitcom and animated series in U.S. history: The Simpsons, spun off in 1989 and set to air until at least 2008. Another early success was 21 Jump Street, an hour-long police drama. The original Sunday lineup[2] also included the sitcoms Duet and Mr. President.[3]
Fox debuted its Saturday night programming over four weeks beginning July 11, 1987, with several shows now long forgotten: Werewolf, Women in Prison,[4] The New Adventures of Beans Baxter and Second Chance.[5]
The next two years saw the introduction of America's Most Wanted, profiling true crimes in hopes of capturing the criminals, and COPS, a reality show documenting the day-to-day activities of police officers. The two shows are among the network's longest-running and are credited with bringing reality television to the mainstream. In August 1988, America's Most Wanted was Fox's first show to break into the top 50 shows of the week according to the Nielsen ratings. As of 2007, both AMW and COPS were still in active production and are among prime-time TV's longest-running television shows.
Fox would expand to seven nights a week of programming by 1993.
Fox survived where DuMont and other previous attempts to start a fourth network failed in part because Fox programmed just under the number of hours to be legally considered a network by the FCC. This allowed Fox to make money in ways forbidden to the established networks, since during its first years it was considered to be merely a large group of stations. By comparison, DuMont was hampered by numerous regulatory roadblocks, most notably a ban on acquiring more stations since its minority owner Paramount Pictures owned two television stations. Combined with DuMont's three television stations, this put DuMont at the legal limit at the time. Also, Murdoch was more than willing to open his wallet to get and keep programming and talent. DuMont, in contrast, operated on a shoestring budget and was unable to keep the programs and stars it had. Most of the other startup networks followed this model as well.
[edit] 1990s
Despite a few successful shows, the network did not have a significant market share until the mid-1990s when News Corp. bought more TV station groups. The first was New World Communications, which had signed an affiliation deal with Fox in 1994 (see below). Later, in 2000, Fox bought several stations owned by Chris-Craft Industries and its subsidiaries BHC Communications and United Television (most of these were UPN affiliates, although one later converted to Fox). This made Fox one of the largest owners of television stations in the United States. Though Fox was growing rapidly as a network and had established itself as a presence, it was still not considered a major competitor to the big three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC).
This would all change when Fox would lure the National Football League away from CBS in 1993. They signed a huge contract to broadcast the NFC, which included luring Pat Summerall and John Madden from CBS as well. At first many were skeptical of this whole move, but the first year was a rousing success, and Fox was officially on the map for good. (see below)
The early and mid-1990s saw the launch of several soap-opera dramas aimed at younger audiences that became quick hits: Beverly Hills 90210, Melrose Place, and Party of Five. September 1993 saw the heavy promotion and debut of a short-lived Western with science-fiction elements, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. However, it was the Friday night show that debuted immediately following it, The X-Files, which would find long-lasting success, and would be Fox's first series to crack Nielsen's year-end Top 25.
The sketch-comedy series In Living Color created many memorable characters (and launched the careers of future movie superstars Jim Carrey, Damon Wayans, Keenen Ivory Wayans, Jamie Foxx and "Fly Girl" dancer Jennifer Lopez). MADtv, another sketch-comedy series, became a solid competitor to NBC's Saturday Night Live.
Notable shows that debuted in the late 1990s include the quirky dramedy Ally McBeal and traditional sitcom That '70s Show, Fox's second-longest-running live-action sitcom.
Building around its flagship The Simpsons, Fox has been relatively successful with animated shows. Family Guy was cancelled in 2002, but the network commissioned new episodes that began in 2005 due to strong DVD sales and highly rated cable reruns. Less successful efforts included The Critic, which originally aired on ABC, and The PJ's, which later aired on The WB.
Around 1996, Fox was exploring plans to merge with The WB. A former Fox chairman at the time noted in a Broadcasting and Cable interview after the CW merger was announced: "Well, we tried to merge with The WB, too, but we couldn't because, at that time, UPN was [half] owned by Chris-Craft and there was no way. We even talked about, 'You get one market, we get another,' but we just couldn't work it out."[citation needed]
[edit] 2000s
Fox arguably hit a few bumps in its programming during 1999 and the early 2000s. Many staple shows of the 1990s had ended or were on the decline. During this time, Fox put much of its efforts into producing reality fare with subjects often seen as extravagant, shocking, or distasteful. These included shows such as Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?, Temptation Island, and Married by America, most successful of these being Joe Millionaire whose finale was watched by over 40 million people. During this time, Fox also featured weekly shows such as World's Wildest Police Videos and When Animals Attack!.
After shedding most of these shows, Fox regained a ratings foothold with acclaimed dramas such as 24, The O.C., and House, and comedies such as The Bernie Mac Show and Malcolm in the Middle. By 2005, Fox's most popular show by far was the talent search American Idol, peaking at up to 30 million viewers on certain episodes and finishing the 2004–05 and 2005–06 seasons as the nation's highest-rated program. House, airing after Idol on Tuesday nights and having had a successful run of summer repeats in 2005, has also positioned itself as a top-ten hit as of the 2005–06 season.
Fox hit a milestone in February 2005 by scoring its first-ever sweeps-month victory among all viewers. This was largely due to the broadcast of Super Bowl XXXIX, but also on the strength of American Idol, 24, House, and The O.C. By the end of the 2004–2005 television season, Fox ranked No. 1 for the first time in its history among the 18–49 demographic most appealing to advertisers.
[edit] Corporate Tidbits
It was estimated in 2003 that Fox is viewable by 96.18% of all U.S. households, reaching 102,565,710 houses in the United States. Fox has 180 VHF and UHF owned-and-operated or affiliate stations in the United States and U.S. possessions. Fox began broadcasting in HDTV in 720p on September 12, 2004 with a series of NFL football games.
[edit] News
- See also: Fox News Channel
Unlike the Big Three, Fox does not air national morning or evening news programs. However, Fox does air live coverage of the State of the Union Address, as well as live breaking news alerts (also known as Fox News Alerts), and produces national news segments to air on the local Fox affiliates' news programs. Fox News Sunday airs on the local Fox network affiliates. In prime time, Fox first tried its hand at a news show in 1988 with an hour-long weekly newsmagazine called The Reporters, which was produced by the same team behind the FTSG-distributed syndicated tabloid program A Current Affair. After two years with low ratings, this program was cancelled.
After Murdoch and Roger Ailes launched FNC in 1995, the network tried again in 1998 with Fox Files, hosted by Fox News anchors Catherine Crier and Jon Scott, as well as a team of correspondents. It lasted a little over a year before being cancelled. During the sweeps of the 2002–2003 TV season, Fox tried another attempt with The Pulse, hosted by Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith.
Many Fox stations have a local morning newscast that airs on average three to four hours, including an extra two hours from 7 to 9 a.m. as a local alternative to nationwide morning programming. Fox, however, did air a nationally based morning show called Fox After Breakfast (which was formerly Breakfast Time on Fox's FX cable channel) between 1996 and 1998, which aired on all affiliates from 9 to 10 a.m. as opposed to the other major networks airing theirs from 7 to 9 a.m. Fox tried its hand again in 2001 at another morning show called Good Day Live, inspired by KTTV's Good Day L.A. — this time in syndication mode. The show did not fare well in ratings and was canceled in 2005. On January 22, 2007 Fox premiered The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet for its O&O stations, hosted by Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy of the Fox News Channel's DaySide program. The show is a lighter, more entertainment-oriented show, though that can change when there is big news. In February 2007, the show was syndicated to many ABC, NBC, and CBS affiliates where a MyNetworkTV or FOX station doesn't carry it.[6]
[edit] Fox Sports
- Management, having seen the critical role that sports programming (soccer programming in particular) had played in the growth of the British satellite service BSkyB, believed that sports, and specifically professional football, would be the engine that would make Fox a major network the quickest. To this end, Fox bid aggressively for football from the start. In 1987, after ABC initially hedged on renewing its contract to carry Monday Night Football, Fox offered the NFL to pick up the contract for the same amount ABC had been paying, about $13 million per game at the time. However, the NFL, in part because Fox had not established itself as a major network, chose to renew its contract with ABC.
Six years later, when the football contract was up for renewal again, Fox made what at the time was a bold and aggressive move to acquire the rights. Knowing that its would likely need to bid considerably more than the incumbent networks to acquire a piece of the package, Fox bid $1.58 billion for 4 years of rights to the NFC, considered the more desirable conference due to its presence in most of the largest U.S. markets, such as New York, Chicago and Philadelphia. To the surprise and shock of many, the NFL selected the Fox bid, in the process stripping CBS of football for the first time since 1952.
Fox's acquisition of football was a watershed event not only for the network but for the NFL as well. Not only was it the event that placed Fox on a par with the "big three" broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) but it also ushered in an era of growth for the NFL which continues on largely to this day. More importantly, Fox's acquisition of the NFL rights also quickly led toward Fox reaching a deal with New World Communications to change the affiliation of 10 of their stations to Fox.
The rights gave Fox many new viewers (and affiliates) and a platform for advertising its other shows. With a sports division now established with the arrival of the NFL, Fox would later acquire over-air broadcast rights to the National Hockey League (1994–99), Major League Baseball (since 1996), and NASCAR auto racing (since 2001 season).
Beginning in 2007, Fox now airs the Bowl Championship Series college football games, with the exception of the Rose Bowl, which will remain on ABC. This package also includes the new BCS Championship Game, except once every four years, when the game is played at the Rose Bowl, which will be on ABC.
In the past few years, when Fox aired new episodes of original programing at 7 p.m. on Sundays during football season, some of the markets, especially on the East Coast, are unable to see all or part of the new episode of the scheduled show due to NFL overrun. Futurama was especially victim to this network decision. Beginning with the 2005 season, Fox has extended its football postgame show to 8 p.m. (the weeks Fox has a doubleheader) or it airs reruns of sitcoms (mostly The Simpsons and King of the Hill).
[edit] Station standardization
During the early 1990s, Fox began having stations branded as "Fox", then the channel number, with the call signs nearby. By the mid-to-late 1990s, the call signs were minimized to be just barely readable to FCC requirements, and the stations were simply known as "Fox", then channel number. (e.g. WNYW in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., and WAGA in Atlanta, Georgia, are referred to as Fox 5.) This would be the start of the trend for other networks to do such naming schemes, especially at CBS, which uses the CBS Mandate on all of its O&O stations. NBC and ABC are less rigid in this.
However, while the traditional "Big Three" do not require their affiliates to have such naming schemes — unless they happen to be owned and operated by those networks (though some affiliates choose to adopt it anyway) — and only on their O&O's are required, Fox recommends that all stations use it. (However, there are some exceptions; see below.) All Fox affiliates must have a Fox-approved logo, and most refer to themselves on-air as, for example, "Fox 12." But some affiliates do not include the channel number in the name, and opt instead to place the city's name there (e.g. Parkersburg, West Virginia, affiliate WTAP employs the moniker Fox Parkersburg rather than Fox 14). This is because many cable companies assign Fox networks to different channels, often a different channel than it is broadcast over the air, which is especially true for Fox affiliates with a channel over 30; Fox O&O WFLD in Chicago goes by Fox Chicago rather than their channel number of 32.
Some affiliates, such as KTVU in Oakland-San Francisco mix between using Fox (channel number) to promote entertainment programming and another brand for news (like their Channel 2 News). A handful of others, like WSVN in the South Florida area and KHON in Honolulu, Hawaii, do not use the Fox brand at all.
Starting in 2006, more standardization of the O&Os began to take place both on the air and online. All the O&Os began adopting an on-air look more closely aligned with the Fox News Channel. This includes changing the logos of all O&Os to have the same red, white and blue rotating box logo of the Fox News Channel. The news music and graphics will eventually be the same on all the O&Os as well.
Taking a cue from News Corp's recent acquisition of MySpace, all the Fox O&Os launched new websites that look the same and have similar addresses. MyFoxDC.com, MyFoxNY.com, MyFoxLA.com, MyFoxHouston.com, MyFoxBoston.com, and MyFoxPhilly.com take visitors to the Washington, D.C., New York City, Los Angeles, Houston, Boston, and Philadelphia Fox O&Os, respectively. Until now, Fox O&Os had very limited websites with few news updates and almost no video. The new sites are updated constantly and have dozens of video segments.
[edit] Programming
Fox adopted a 19-hour programming schedule in September 1993. It was expanded to 20 hours in 1996. It provides 15 hours of prime time programming to owned-and-operated and affiliated stations: 8-10 p.m. Monday to Friday (all times ET/PT), 8-10 p.m. and 11 p.m.-12:30 a.m on Saturday, and 7-10 p.m. on Sundays. Programming will also be provided Saturday mornings as part of a four-hour animation block under the banner 4Kids TV (which in some markets, especially where Fox Television Stations Group owns both the Fox and MyNetworkTV affiliates and the Fox affiliate was formerly owned by New World Communications, will air on the MyNetworkTV affiliate, while the Fox station airs local news) and the hour-long political news program Fox News Sunday (time slot may vary).
Sports programming is also provided (albeit not every weekend year-round) 12-4 or 8 p.m. Sundays (during football season, slightly less during NASCAR season) and 3:30-7 p.m. Saturday afternoons (during baseball season).
[edit] Prime time
- Further information: List of programs broadcast by Fox
Returning comedies are in red; new comedies are in pink; returning dramas are in green; new dramas are in blue; returning reality shows are in yellow; new reality shows are in gold; returning game shows are in orange; new game shows are in beige, sports programming is in purple.
All times are Eastern and Pacific (subtract one hour for Central and add one hour for Mountain time).
| 7:00 PM | 7:30 PM | 8:00 PM | 8:30 PM | 9:00 PM | 9:30 PM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | The War at Home | King of the Hill | The Simpsons | American Dad | Family Guy | Family Guy |
| Monday | Local Programming | Family Guy | Family Guy | Hell's Kitchen | ||
| Tuesday | On the Lot | House | ||||
| Wednesday | So You Think You Can Dance | |||||
| Thursday | Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? | So You Think You Can Dance | ||||
| Friday | Bones | Standoff | ||||
| Saturday | COPS | COPS | America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back | |||
- The Saturday latenight lineup includes sketch-comedy show MADtv, followed by Talkshow with Spike Feresten.
[edit] Fall 2007
| 7:00 PM | 7:30 PM | 8:00 PM | 8:30 PM | 9:00 PM | 9:30 PM | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sunday | The OT * | The Simpsons | King of the Hill | Family Guy | American Dad! | |
| Monday | Local Programming | Prison Break | K-Ville | |||
| Tuesday | New Amsterdam | House | ||||
| Wednesday | Back to You | 'Til Death | Bones | |||
| Thursday | Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader? | Kitchen Nightmares | ||||
| Friday | The Search for the Next Great American Band | Nashville | ||||
| Saturday | COPS | COPS | America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back | |||
FOX's Fall upfront presentation
- Returning midseason shows are reality competition American Idol and drama 24.
- * - The OT is comprised of late-ending NFL games and the NFL on FOX postgame show. It is aired at 4:00 PM PT, so comedy repeats replace it on the prime time schedule in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
[edit] Children's programming
Fox began airing children's programming in 1990 when it launched the Fox Kids Network. Fox's children's programing featured many cartoons and some live-action series (particularly fantasy action programs) including Power Rangers (currently airing on various Disney-owned networks: ABC, Toon Disney, and Jetix channels around the world), Bobby's World, The Tick, Eerie, Indiana and Goosebumps. When The WB added the Kids' WB programming block in 1995, Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs and later Batman: The Animated Series, (all of which originated either on Fox Kids or in syndication) moved to Kids' WB with new productions and original shows included. A new Goosebumps series called Goosebumps 2007 will air this summer.
Fox would abandon Fox Kids after selling the children's division and the former Fox Family Channel (now ABC Family) to The Walt Disney Company in 2002 and then sell the four hours of Saturday morning time to 4Kids Entertainment.
Since then, Fox has been running a Saturday morning line-up made for the family, featuring such shows as Viva Piñata.
[edit] Differences between Fox and the "Big Three" networks
[edit] Programming
Fox only airs two hours of network programming during the prime time hours (three hours on Sundays), compared to the three hours (four on Sundays) by the other major networks. This allows for many of its stations to air local news during the 10 p.m. time slot. Fox's original reason for the reduced number of prime time hours was to avoid fulfilling the FCC's requirements at the time to be considered a network [7] and to be free of resulting regulations. Though FCC rules have been relaxed since then.
Fox also does not air soap operas or any other network daytime programming (game shows, talk shows) despite being a major network. Because of this, affiliates have more time for lucrative syndicated programming. (Fox produces three syndicated daytime courtroom shows, Divorce Court, Judge Alex, and Cristina's Court). However, it has been reported that FOX may be moving into the arena in the near future, as they have ordered a daytime drama pilot. [8]
[edit] Children's Programming
Fox is the only network whose owned-and-operated stations do not broadcast the entire Fox network schedule. All Fox O&Os acquired through the Fox/New World merger of 1997 have rejected Fox's children's program lineup, except KTVI in St. Louis, who only took Fox kids after religious station KNLC placed religious messages in place of commercials and broadcasts during the lineup which Fox didn't feel appropriate to be seen during children's programming (KTVI broadcasts 4KidsTV an hour earlier than most Fox stations; Fox recommends the lineup run from 7-11am, due to a newscast at 10am Saturday mornings).
The only Fox O&Os that air 4KidsTV are KTVI, all former Metromedia stations (except WFLD in Chicago), KRIV Houston, KSTU Salt Lake City, WTXF Philadelphia, WFXT Boston, WOFL Orlando and WOGX Gainesville/Ocala. 4KidsTV is not broadcast at all in three other markets (on the Fox station or on other stations): Austin, Memphis and Greensboro/Winston-Salem/High Point, making it the only children's program lineup that is not seen on all its intended network's affiliates (in all other markets, it is passed on to a MyNetworkTV affiliate or another station). The reason is Fox considers 4KidsTV as moreso a syndicated package rather an actual part of the network lineup.
In order not to violate FCC rules which state that commercial stations must broadcast a minimum amount of children's programming a week, the stations that rejected 4Kids TV (whether or not they did it to add a weekend morning newscast) run syndicated childrens shows in its place. The lineup may have to be scaled back to three hours from the current four, aired later on the morning and have it become an official part of the network schedule in order for all stations to air the lineup.
[edit] Local Station Pre-emptions
As opposed to The Big Three networks (especially NBC) not being pleased with pre-emptions of their affiliates, Fox is the only network that does not have a problem with its stations and affiliates pre-empting network programming for various reasons. Aside from the Fox Kids-to-4 Kids TV pre-emptions since the late 1990's, many affiliates and stations pre-empted Fox shows to air local programming and in many cases, air local sports programming in its place (example: KTVU airs San Francisco Giants baseball). This dates back to when most local stations carried a general entertainment format. In most cases, Fox has been satisfied with the local stations regardless because of the relatively small amount of hours of network programming; this gives stations enough leverage to be trusted by the network to air the pre-empted programs late at night (after prime time newscasts), on the weekends, or on the counterpart local sister station through a duopoly.
[edit] News
At least half of Fox's 180 O&O and affiliated stations air local news in the 10-11PM (9-10PM CT/MT) timeslot. The newscast schedules on Fox stations vary more from station to station than ABC, CBS and NBC's affiliates. Some Fox stations (primarily Fox O&Os acquired via the Fox/New World merger, along with a few non-O&Os) have a newscast schedule similar to the Big Three's affiliates along with the added late evening newscast at 10PM and a late afternoon newscast extended by a half-hour competing with the national evening newscasts, while others only have a 10PM newscast.
Tampa's WTVT has the most local news of any Fox station with 51 hours per week, followed by Kansas City's WDAF-TV with 49 hours a week. Only a few Fox stations that air an 11PM (or 10PM) newscast along with a 10PM (or 9PM) newscast. WDAF-TV, WTVT, WITI in Milwaukee, WFLD in Chicago, KDFW in Dallas/Fort Worth, WBRC in Birmingham, KMSP in Minneapolis-St. Paul, KSAZ in Phoenix and WTTG Washington, D.C. are the only Fox-owned stations to have a 11PM/10PM newscast in the Central and Mountain Time Zones with only WDAF, WITI, WBRC, WTTG and KSAZ airing it every night.
Stations that don't air local news air syndicated programming, usually off-network sitcoms in that timeslot, though some small market Fox affiliates outsource their newscasts to a Big Three station in the market (either situation may change in the future as more Fox stations start their own news divisions). Upstart Fox local news divisions do not run an full slate of newscasts (i.e., morning, midday, early and late evening newscasts plus news on weekend evenings and possibly weekend mornings), instead starting with a 10PM newscast then gradually adding other newscasts.
[edit] Criticism
 |
This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes.
This article or section contains insufficiently sourced phrases. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. You may improve the article or discuss this issue on its talk page. Help on using footnotes is available. This article has been tagged since May 2007. |
Despite its popularity, Fox has also come under fire from many quarters, especially from fans of sci-fi/fantasy television. This displeasure stems from the perceived premature cancellation of some series which had small but passionate audiences, most notably Firefly, Sliders, Space: Above and Beyond, Dark Angel, Tru Calling, Fastlane, Wonderfalls, Reunion, Vanished, Standoff, and Drive. The cancellations of animated series Family Guy and Futurama were also criticized; in the former's case, the program was picked up again in 2005, while the latter series is being revived for 2008 on cable's Comedy Central (who will also acquire the rerun rights from Adult Swim starting September 2007). Fox was also heavily criticized on its decision to cancel the critically acclaimed Arrested Development, which in 2004 gave the network its first comedy Emmy in many years. The show was in discussions to be picked up by Showtime or ABC, but producers decided not to pursue continuing the show.
The network's justification for cancelling these programs has generally been poor ratings. Fans of these programs respond by pointing toward critical praise and dedicated core fan followings, and blame the ratings on inconvenient time slots, poor advertising or illogical broadcasting. For example, the first episode of Firefly was the last episode aired, and other episodes were aired out of order. Also, the first two episodes of Drive were aired on a Sunday, and the third episode was aired the next day against Dancing With The Stars and Deal Or No Deal. Further inflaming fans, Fox has promised to air remaining episodes of shows and then failed to follow through on these promises.[9]
In 1997, Fox-owned station WTVT in Tampa, Florida, fired two reporters, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, who had refused instructions from superiors to revise a story on bovine growth hormone in ways that the reporters saw as being in conflict with the facts, and had threatened to report Fox to the FCC. The reporters sued under a Florida whistleblower law. A jury ruled that Fox had indeed ordered the reporters to distort the facts. Fox successfully appealed against judgment on the grounds that its First Amendment rights to freedom of speech and press protected it from such litigation, and that the FCC's policy against distortion of news was not a sufficiently significant rule for its breach to invoke the whistleblower law.[10][11]
In 2006, a number of Fox affiliates said that they would refuse to air O.J. Simpson's two-night interview special with Judith Regan, If I Did It, Here's How It Happened, scheduled for November 27 and 29, citing overwhelmingly negative viewer feedback. With other major affiliate groups reportedly threatening to pull their stations as well, Fox pulled the special a week before its airdate.
The Parents Television Council named Fox "the worst network to watch with your children,, describing many of the shows as "100% immoral."
Fox has also been criticized for issuing takedown notices to websites that link to copyrighted Fox TV shows and clips.[12][13][14][15][16] The law on linking liability is currently considered a gray area.
[edit] Sports
|
This article or section is missing citations and/or footnotes.
This article or section contains insufficiently sourced phrases. Using inline citations helps guard against copyright violations and factual inaccuracies. You may improve the article or discuss this issue on its talk page. Help on using footnotes is available. This article has been tagged since February 2007. |
Since the network bought the rights to post-season baseball coverage, Fox has received criticism from non-baseball fans for not airing first-run original programming during October. (Baseball fans point out that there are plenty of other broadcast and cable networks available on every TV package that do show original scripted programming.) For the majority of the years that Fox has aired baseball, the network started the season for The Simpsons and other shows in November. In 2005, Fox started its season in September, took the month of October off to show the Major League Baseball playoffs, and resumed non-baseball programming in November. Both approaches have drawn criticism. Fox Sports has also received criticism from sports fans of bias toward teams in certain conferences, especially during the Super Bowl and the World Series, usually the National Football Conference in football (due to the fact that Fox owns the rights to NFC games) and the American League, especially the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox, in baseball. Fox rarely shows teams from outside the top-10 media markets during the regular season.
Among baseball enthusiasts, Fox's coverage of Major League Baseball is not thought of highly. Most cite "whooshing" sound effects to accompany on-screen graphics, the use of Scooter, a talking baseball created with the intent of teaching the younger audience the difference between pitches, and even analyst Tim McCarver as reasons for their disdain (even though McCarver used to be an analyst at CBS and ABC before he worked at Fox).
Fox's National Hockey League coverage drew the ire of some hockey fans due to FoxTrax, a computer-generated "glowing" effect around the puck, which was intended to help casual fans keep up with the action. Ostensibly, it did not work, as the network chose not to match ESPN and ABC Sports' five-year, $600 million contract with the NHL in August 1998. Fox did not retain FoxTrax for its final season of coverage.
Fans of the series Malcolm in the Middle also criticized Fox, because during the football season, Fox would finish the scheduled game, but then cut to another game running over schedule, then do the postgame show, frequently eating into Malcolm's timeslot in the Eastern United States. This resulted in a ratings drop that would later lead to the series' cancellation. This is the same fate previously met by Futurama.
[edit] Note
[edit] Network slogans
| Year | Slogan |
|---|---|
| 1987 | Don't Let Fox Weekend Pass You By |
| 1988 | This is the Year |
| 1990 | It's On Fox! |
| 1993 | Fox: You're Watching It |
| 1994 | It Could Only Happen on Fox |
| 1994 | The Spirit of Fox |
| 1995 | Cool Like Us |
| 1996 | Non-Stop Fox |
| 1997 | Just One Fox |
[edit] See also
- 20th Century Fox
- Friday night death slot
- Fox cartoons
- Fox Sports
- List of Fox affiliates, arranged by state
- List of Fox affiliates, arranged by market
- List of programs broadcast by Fox
- List of United States television networks
- Fox Kids
- 4Kids TV
[edit] Further reading
- Alex Ben. Block (1990), Outfoxed ISBN 0-312-03904-2
- Daniel M. Kimmel (2004), The Fourth Network ISBN 1-56663-572-1
[edit] References
- ^ http://members.aol.com/cingram/television/dumont9.htm
- ^ Fox Network Schedules April 1987–May 1990
- ^ "Mr. President" (1987)
- ^ "Women in Prison" (1987)
- ^ "Second Chance" (1987)
- ^ Official Website : Where To Watch?
- ^ [1]
- ^ FOX to Take on Daytime TV?: Network to Enter Soap Business
- ^ [2]
- ^ [3]
- ^ [4]
- ^ Doctorow, Cory. "Fox commits copyright fraud", BoingBoing, 2006-12-01. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
- ^ Doctorow, Cory. "Fake "no-linking" copyright law breaks Wikipedia", BoingBoing, 2006-12-02. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
- ^ Guy, IPTV. "TV Show Directory QuickSilverScreen.com Threatened by Fox", Web TV Wire, 2006-12-07. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
- ^ Thor, Lord. "DailyEpisodes closed down by Fox, for LINKING to TV show episodes!", Digg.com, 2006-12-07. Retrieved on 2006-10-02.
- ^ Litzau. "Allsimps.com has been shut down!", Digg.com, 2006-11-01. Retrieved on 2006-12-07.
