Everything about Fox Network totally explained
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 status of the highest-
rated broadcast network in the coveted 18-49 demographic from 2004-2007.
(External Link
) In 2007, Fox became the most popular network in America, dethroning CBS.
(External Link)
The Fox name has been used on other entertainment channels internationally that are affiliated with News Corp., including in
Australia (
FOX8),
Bulgaria,
Germany,
Japan,
Italy,
Serbia,
South Korea,
Spain,
Portugal,
South America,
Brazil and
Turkey although these don't 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.
History
Groundwork for the Fox network began in March 1985 with News Corporation's
$250 million purchase of 50 percent of
TCF Holdings, the parent company of the
20th Century Fox movie studio. In May 1985, News Corporation agreed to pay $1.55 billion to acquire
independent television stations in six major U.S. cities from
John Kluge's company,
Metromedia. These stations were: WNEW-TV in
New York City,
WTTG in
Washington, D.C.,
KTTV in
Los Angeles,
KRIV-TV in
Houston,
WFLD-TV in
Chicago, and KRLD-TV in
Dallas. A seventh station,
ABC-affiliated
WCVB-TV in
Boston, was part of the original transaction but was spun-off in a separate, concurrent deal to the
Hearst Corporation as part of a
right of first refusal related to that station's 1982 sale to Metromedia.
In October 1985, 20th Century Fox announced its intentions to form an independent television system which would compete with the three major U.S. television networks (
ABC,
CBS, and
NBC). The plans were to use the combination of the Fox studios and the former Metromedia stations to both produce and distribute programming. Organizational plans for the network were held off until the Metromedia acquisitions cleared regulatory hurdles. Then, in December 1985, Rupert Murdoch agreed to pay $325 million to acquire the rest of the studio from his original partner,
Marvin Davis. The purchase of the Metromedia stations was approved by the
Federal Communications Commission in March 1986; the New York and Dallas outlets were subsequently renamed
WNYW and
KDAF respectively. These first six stations, then broadcasting to 22 percent of the nation's households, became known as the
Fox Television Stations group.
Except for KDAF (which was sold to the
Tribune Company in 1995), all of the original stations are still part of the Fox network 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 television stations formed the nucleus of the Fox network. WNYW (originally known as WABD) and WTTG were two of the three original
owned and operated (O&O) stations in the DuMont network; the third of the former Dumont O&O's (
WDTV Pittsburgh) is currently owned by
CBS.
1986: The fourth network is born
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'll 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
chief operating officer and chairman
Barry Diller and comedian
Joan Rivers, announced plans for "FBC" or the "Fox Broadcasting Company", 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. Starting with the former Metromedia outlets, Fox had lined up 90 independent stations as affiliates, including notables such as
KTVU in
Oakland, California,
WTAF-TV in
Philadelphia,
WKBD-TV in
Detroit,
WTOG-TV in
St. Petersburg, Florida, and
KPTV in
Portland, Oregon. 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 in syndication and not for Fox.
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. Another early success was
21 Jump Street, an hour-long police drama. The original Sunday lineup also included the sitcoms
Duet and
Mr. President.
Fox debuted its Saturday night programming over four weeks beginning
July 11,
1987, with several shows now long forgotten:
Werewolf,
Women in Prison,
The New Adventures of Beans Baxter and
Second Chance.
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.
1990s: Rise into mainstream success
Despite a few successful shows, the network didn't 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 2001, 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 all changed when Fox lured the
National Football League away from
CBS in 1993. They signed a huge contract to broadcast the
NFC, which included luring
Pat Summerall,
John Madden,
Dick Stockton,
Matt Millen,
James Brown, and
Terry Bradshaw 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.
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,
New York Undercover 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.
Fox would expand to seven nights a week of programming by 1993, which included scheduling the breakout hit
The Simpsons opposite
NBC's
The Cosby Show as one of Fox's initial Thursday night offerings in the fall of 1990 (along with future hit
Beverly Hills 90210,) after only a half-season of success on Sunday nights (the show thrived in its new timeslot, helping to launch
Martin, another Fox hit in 1992;
The Simpsons returned to Sunday nights in the fall of 1994.)
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 behind
Married... with Children.
Building around its flagship
The Simpsons, Fox has been relatively successful with animated shows.
King of the Hill began in 1997;
Family Guy began in 1999, and was cancelled in 2002, but the network commissioned new episodes that began in 2005 due to strong
DVD sales and highly rated cable reruns on
Adult Swim of
Cartoon Network. Less successful efforts included
The Critic, which starred
Jon Lovitz from
Saturday Night Live, originally aired on ABC then moved to Fox before being cancelled, 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."
2000s: The Idol effect
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, and/or distasteful. These included shows such as
Who Wants to Marry a Multi-Millionaire?,
Temptation Island, and
Married by America. The most successful of these shows was
Joe Millionaire, whose season one finale was watched by over 40 million people, although its second season was a ratings disappointment. 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 37 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, positioned itself as a top-ten hit in 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. On May 21, 2008, Fox took the #1 general households rating crown for the first time, over CBS, based on the strength of
Super Bowl XLII and
American Idol .
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.
News
Unlike the
Big Three, Fox doesn't 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 1996, 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 didn't 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's 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.
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 hadn't 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 it 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
1955.
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).
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. (for example
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 most of its
owned and operated ("O&O") stations.
However, while the traditional "Big Three" don't require their affiliates to have such naming schemes, 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 don't include the channel number in the name, and opt instead to use a city/regional descriptor in place of the channel number (for example 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's 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, don't 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 almost all of these stations to have the same red, white and blue rotating box logo. The news music and graphics will eventually be the same on all the O&Os as well. However, WITI in Milwaukee chose to take on the new graphical coloring, but keep their horizontal
FOX6 logo relatively similar to their previous version, due to the heavy integration of the former logo into the station's news set.
Taking a cue from News Corporation's recent acquisition of
MySpace, many of the Fox O&Os launched new websites that look the same and have similar addresses. For example, MyFoxDC.com takes visitors to the web site of the Fox owned-and-operated station in Washington D.C.
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).
Prime time
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; returning game shows are in
orange; sports programming is in
purple.
All times are
Eastern and
Pacific (subtract one hour for
Central and add one hour for
Mountain time).
Fall 2008
FOX shows
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, (all of which originated either on Fox Kids or in syndication) moved to Kids' WB with new productions and original shows included.
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.
Differences between Fox and the "Big Three" networks
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 (except for
The CW and
ION Television). 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 and to be free of resulting regulations, though FCC rules have been relaxed since then.
Fox also doesn't 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've ordered a daytime drama pilot called
Born in the USA which has already been cast and has now started production.
Local news
At least half of Fox's 180 O&O and affiliated stations air local news in the 10-11 p.m. (9-10 p.m. 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 have a newscast schedule similar to the Big Three's affiliates along with the added late evening newscast at 10 p.m. and a late afternoon newscast extended by a half-hour competing with the national evening newscasts, while others only have a 10 p.m. newscast.
Tampa's
WTVT has the most local news of any Fox station with roughly 52.5 hours per week, followed by Kansas City's
WDAF-TV with 49 hours a week. Only a few Fox stations that air an 11 p.m. (or 10 p.m.) newscast along with a 10 p.m. (or 9 p.m.) newscast.
WDAF-TV,
WTVT,
WITI in Milwaukee,
WFLD in Chicago,
KDFW in Dallas/Fort Worth,
WJBK in Detroit,
WBRC in Birmingham,
KMSP in Minneapolis-St. Paul,
KSAZ in Phoenix,
WTTG Washington, D.C and
KTVI St.Louis. are the only Fox-owned stations to have a 11p.m./10 p.m. newscast in the
Central and
Mountain Time Zones with only
WDAF,
WITI,
WBRC,
WTTG, and
KSAZ airing it every night.
KOKH in Oklahoma City and
WSVN in Miami are the few non-O&Os airing a 10pm (or 9 p.m.) and a 11pm (or 10 p.m.) newscast.
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). In some smaller markets with
duopolies, the Fox affiliate usually airs a 10 PM newscast from a sister station, such as
Youngstown, Ohio where
CBS affiliate
WKBN airs a 10 PM newscast on its sister station, Fox affiliate
WYFX . Upstart Fox local news divisions don't run a full slate of newscasts (for example, morning, midday, early and late evening newscasts plus news on weekend evenings and possibly weekend mornings), instead starting with a 10 p.m. newscast then gradually adding other newscasts.
The largest market with a Fox affiliate that airs no news whatsoever is
Buffalo, New York, where
WUTV has long opted for sitcom reruns instead to draw a different audience.
Criticism
Quick cancellations
Despite its popularity, Fox has also come under fire from many quarters, especially from fans of sci-fi/fantasy television. This stems from the perceived premature cancellation of several series which had vocal and active fan bases, but low ratings, like
Firefly,
Wonderfalls and
Fastlane. 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 was revived for 2008 on
Comedy Central (who also acquired the rerun rights from
Adult Swim on 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 series.
The network's justification for canceling 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
pilot episode of
Firefly, traditionally aired first as an introduction to characters and storylines, was the last episode aired by Fox. Most other episodes of
Firefly were aired out of production and storyline order. Another often-cited example is the 1990s series
Sliders, which faced similar problems on Fox.
In more recent years, 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. Fox canceled
Drive after only four episodes and the last two complete episodes were shown online. Further inflaming fans, Fox has promised to air remaining episodes of shows and then failed to follow through on these promises.
News
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 wasn't a sufficiently significant rule for its breach to invoke the whistleblower law.
In 2006, a number of Fox affiliates said that they'd 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.
Clip sharing websites
Fox has also been criticized for issuing takedown notices to websites that link to copyrighted Fox TV shows and clips. The law on linking liability is currently considered a gray area.
Indecency
Controversy surrounded the network in 2002 and 2003 over obscenities, expressed respectively by
Cher and
Nicole Richie, aired live on the network's broadcasts of the
Billboard Music Awards on its affiliates in the
Eastern and
Central Time Zones despite the use of five-second audio delays; the obscenities were all edited out on broadcasts in the
Mountain Time Zone and westward. Both of the obscene instances were condemned by the
Parents Television Council and named by them among the worst instances on television from 2001 to 2004. PTC members filed tens of thousands of complaints to the
Federal Communications Commission over the broadcasts. The Fox network's subsequently apology was labeled a "sham" by PTC president
L. Brent Bozell III, who argued that Fox could have easily used audio delay to edit out the obscene language. As the FCC was investigating the broadcasts, in 2004, Fox announced that it would begin extending live broadcast delays to 5 minutes from its standard 5 or 10 seconds to more easily be able to edit out obscenities uttered over the air. In June 2007, in the case
Fox et al. v. Federal Communications Commission, the
U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC couldn't issue indecency fines against the Fox network because the obscenities in the Billboard awards shows were merely fleeting, but the FCC eventually decided to appeal the Second Circuit Court's finding.
Broadcasting & Cable has reported that the FCC might makes its final decision regarding the broadcasts by January 2008. Subsequently, the network was given another month's extension to respond to the FCC's petition for the
United States Supreme Court to reconsider its decision to invalidate the FCC's indecency findings of the awards shows.
The
Parents Television Council has criticized many popular FOX shows for perceived indecent content, such as
American Dad,
Arrested Development,
The Simpsons,
Family Guy,
Hell's Kitchen,
Married...With Children,
Prison Break, and
That '70s Show. The Council sometimes has gone even as far as to file complaints with the
Federal Communications Commission regarding indecent content within Fox programming, having done so for
That '70s Show and
Married By America, having successfully been able to make the FCC fine the Fox network nearly $1 million for
Married by America. Also, Fox programming has been chosen by the PTC for its weekly "Worst TV Show of the Week" feature more often than programming from any other broadcast network.
Sports
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. (In 2007, Fox no longer has rights to League Division Series games, and has only one League Championship Series per year.) 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 often criticized. Many 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 announcers
Tim McCarver,
Joe Buck, and
Jeanne Zelasko as reasons for their disdain (even though McCarver used to be an analyst at
ABC and
CBS before he worked at Fox). Other purists are critical of Fox's rapid-fire switching of screen shots, complaining that it isn't well-suited to the pace of baseball.
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 didn't work, as the network chose not to match
ESPN and
ABC Sports' five-year, $600 million contract with the NHL in August 1998. Fox didn't 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.
Fox is credited with a major graphics innovation in televised sports. Originally known as the Fox Box, a nearly omni-present graphic featuring the score and pertinent information, most notably the position of base-runners, count on the batter, score, inning and pitch speed in baseball; time remaining, score, down, possession and penalty flag indicators for football. Originally presented as a box in an upper corner of the screen (hence the term Fox Box), it's now generally seen as a strip imposed over the picture at the top of the screen. Other networks have adopted the scheme, which allows fans an instant and constant graphic insight into the progress and status of a game, as opposed to the prior practice which saw graphical references to scores and time remaining presented mainly at critical junctures or leading into commercial breaks. The scoring banner design is also used by other Fox owned sports operations, such as
Fox Sports Net and the
Big Ten Network.
All times given in the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones.
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/We're Gonna Keep it on Fox |
| 1995 |
Cool Like Us |
| 1996 |
Non-Stop Fox |
| 1997 |
Just One Fox |
| 2007 |
Fox on |
Logos
Over the years, the Fox Broadcasting Company has used a few logos, most of which have the familiar trademark searchlights on either side of "FOX".
Image:FOX86.jpg|FOX's first logo, from 1986-1987.
Image:FOX87.jpg|FOX's second logo from 1987-1988.
Image:FOX87a.jpg|FOX's second logo from 1987, for its owned-and-operated stations, the "Fox Television Stations Group".
Image:FOX88.jpg|FOX's logo from 1988-1994.
Image:FOX94.jpg|FOX's logo from 1994-1995. The O started in 1994 and still appears today.
Image:FOX95.jpg|FOX's logo from 1995-1996.
Image:FOX97.jpg|FOX's logo from 1996-1999. Now it's the alternate logo from 2000-present
Image:FBC_logo.svg|FOX's current logo, from 1999-present.
In addition, a green version of the logo in late April 2008 featured the O in the logo replaced with either a leaf inside a circle, or a globe with the Western Hemisphere in profile, in conjunction with the network's Earth Day campaign. During holiday periods, the Fox O has also been replaced with a jack-o'-lantern for Halloween and a globe Christmas ornament for that holiday.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Fox Network'.
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