Fox Broadcasting Company
Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC is an American commercial broadcast television network serving as the flagship namesake property of Fox Corporation and operated through Fox Entertainment. The channel was launched by News Corporation on October 9, 1986 as a competitor to the Big Three television networks, which are the American Broadcasting Company, the Columbia Broadcasting System, and the National Broadcasting Company.
Fox has gone on to become the most successful attempt at a fourth television network; it was also the highest-rated free-to-air network in the 18–49 demographic from 2004 to 2012 and 2020 to 2021 and was the most-watched American television network in total viewership during the 2007–08 season. It is a member of the North American Broadcasters Association and the National Association of Broadcasters. Unlike other major commercial broadcast networks, Fox does not have a newscast of its own due to its lack of a news division, and instead relies on its own 24-hour news channels, Fox News, Fox Business Network, and Fox Weather to supply news programming for the network.
Fox and its affiliated companies operate many entertainment channels in international markets, but these do not necessarily air the same programming as the American network. Most viewers in Canada have access to at least one American-based Fox affiliate, either over the air or through a pay television provider, although Fox's National Football League broadcasts and most of its prime time programming are subject to simultaneous substitution regulations for pay television providers imposed by the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission to protect rights held by domestically based networks.
Fox is based at Fox Corporation's corporate headquarters at 1211 Avenue of the Americas in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, and it hosts additional offices at the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles and at the Fox Media Center in Tempe, Arizona.
History
Origins
had been involved in television production as early as 1948. Its television arm was called TCF Television Productions up until 1958, which produced several syndicated programs. Following the closure of the DuMont Television Network in August 1956, after it became mired in severe financial problems, the NTA Film Network was launched as a new "fourth network". 20th would also produce original content for the NTA network. The film network effort would fail after a few years, but 20th continued to dabble in television through its production arm, such as Perry Mason, Batman and M*A*S*H for the Big Three television networks ABC, NBC, and CBS.1980s: Establishment of the network
Foundations
While running Paramount Pictures, Barry Diller attempted to create a fourth television network. The Paramount Television Service of 1977 was canceled before its first broadcast. Paramount produced many programs for the Big Three but catering to their demands "just wore us down", he said in 1983: "I want to make our own things and put them on the air". Diller hoped to create a "mini-network" of independent television stations airing Paramount programs. Unable to achieve his goal at Paramount, Diller joined film studio 20th Century Fox.In March 1985, News Corporation, a media company owned by Australian publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch that had mainly served as a newspaper publisher, paid $255 million for a 50% interest in TCF Holdings, the parent company of the 20th Century Fox film studio. In May 1985, News agreed to pay $2.55 billion to acquire independent stations in six major U.S. cities from the John Kluge-run broadcasting company Metromedia: 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 affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston, was part of the original transaction but was spun off to the Hearst Broadcasting subsidiary of the Hearst Communications in a separate, concurrent deal as part of a right of first refusal related to that station's 1982 sale to Metromedia.
Radio personality Clarke Ingram suggested that the Fox network is a revival or at least a linear descendant of DuMont, since Metromedia was founded when DuMont spun off its two remaining owned-and-operated stations, WNEW-TV and WTTG, as DuMont Broadcasting. Additionally, the former base of DuMont's operations, the DuMont Tele-Centre in Manhattan, eventually became the present-day Fox Television Center.
Beginning of the network
In 1985, 20th Century Fox announced its intentions to form a fourth television network that would compete with 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 remaining equity in TCF Holdings from his original partner, Marvin Davis. The purchase of the Metromedia stations was approved by the Federal Communications Commission in March 1986; the call letters of the New York City and Dallas outlets were subsequently changed respectively to WNYW and KDAF. These first six stations, then broadcasting to a combined reach of 22% of the nation's households, became known as the Fox Television Stations group. With the sole exception of KDAF, all of the original owned-and-operated stations are still part of the Fox network today. Like the core O&O group, Fox's affiliate body initially consisted of independent stations. The local charter affiliate was, in most cases, that market's top-rated independent; however, Fox opted to affiliate with a second-tier independent station in markets where a more established independent declined the affiliation. Largely because of both these factors, Fox in a situation very similar to what DuMont had experienced four decades before had little choice but to affiliate with UHF stations in all except a few markets where the network gained clearance. Then-Fox Inc. head Barry Diller was acknowledged to have been the one who created the network, with the New York Times noting in October 1986 that Diller's "current obsession is creating a television network to compete each evening with NBC, CBS and ABC."The Fox television network officially debuted with a soft launch at 11:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time on Thursday, October 9, 1986. Its inaugural program was a late-night talk show, The Late Show, which was hosted by comedian Joan Rivers. After a strong start, The Late Show quickly eroded in the ratings; it was never able to overtake NBC stalwart The Tonight Show. By early 1987, Rivers quit The Late Show after disagreements with the network over the show's creative direction, the program then began to be hosted by a succession of guest hosts. After that point, some stations that affiliated with FBC in the weeks before the April 1987 launch of its prime time lineup signed affiliation agreements with the network on the condition that they would not have to carry The Late Show due to the program's weak ratings.
Shortly before the official launch of FBC on April 5, 1987, under original Fox Entertainment President Garth Ancier, the network underwent a re-branding to the much shorter "Fox". According to an interview Ancier gave at that time, it was ad man Jay Chiat who suggested to network executives that, rather than create a brand from scratch, the network ought to use the "Fox" heritage of the previous 80 years and the "searchlight" iconography to link Fox Broadcasting to 20th Century Fox. Until late in the game during the 1980s, several station groups like Media Central and Pappas Telecasting had avoided Fox when the network launched, but joined the network later on.
The network had its "grand opening" when it expanded its programming into prime time on April 5, 1987, inaugurating its Sunday night lineup with the premieres of the sitcom Married... with Children and the sketch comedy series The Tracey Ullman Show. The premieres of both series were rebroadcast twice following their initial airings that night, which Jamie Kellner, who served as the network's president and chief operating officer until his resignation in January 1993, stated would allow viewers to "sample FBC programming without missing 60 Minutes, Murder, She Wrote, or the 8 o'clock movies". Fox added one new show per week over the next several weeks, with the drama 21 Jump Street and comedies Mr. President and Duet completing its Sunday schedule. On July 11, 1987, the network rolled out its Saturday night schedule with the premiere of the supernatural drama series Werewolf, which began with a two-hour pilot movie event. Three other series were added to the Saturday lineup over the next three weeks: comedies The New Adventures of Beans Baxter, Karen's Song, and Down and Out in Beverly Hills. Both Karen's Song and Down and Out in Beverly Hills were canceled by the start of the 1987–88 television season, the network's first fall launch, and were replaced by the sitcoms Second Chance and Women in Prison, both of which would be cancelled by mid 1988.
In regard to its late night lineup, Fox had already decided to cancel The Late Show, and had a replacement series in development, The Wilton North Report, when the former series began a ratings resurgence under its final guest host, comedian Arsenio Hall. Wilton North lasted just a few weeks, however, and the network was unable to reach a deal with Hall to return as host when it hurriedly revived The Late Show in early 1988. The Late Show went back to featuring guest hosts, eventually selecting Ross Shafer as its permanent host, only for it to be canceled for good by October 1988, while Hall signed a deal with Paramount Television to develop his own syndicated late night talk show, The Arsenio Hall Show. Fox aired the 39th Primetime Emmy Awards and would air the next five editions.
Although the network had modest successes in Married... with Children and The Tracy Ullman Show, several affiliates were disappointed with Fox's largely underperforming programming lineup during the network's first three years, KMSP-TV in Minneapolis and KPTV in Portland, Oregon, both owned at the time by Chris-Craft Television, disaffiliated from Fox in 1988, citing that the network's weaker program offerings were hampering viewership of their stronger syndicated slate.
At the start of the 1989–90 television season, Fox added a third night of programming, on Mondays. The season heralded the start of a turnaround for Fox. It saw the debut of a midseason replacement series, The Simpsons, an animated series that originated as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show. Ranked at a three-way tie for 29th place in the Nielsen ratings, it became a breakout hit and was the first Fox series to break the Top 30. The Simpsons, at 36 years as of 2025, is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series.
In 1989, Fox also first introduced the documentary series Cops and crime-focused magazine program America's Most Wanted. These two series, which would become staples on the network for just over two decades, would eventually be paired to form the nucleus of Fox's Saturday night schedule beginning in the 1994–95 season. Meanwhile, Married... with Children, which differentiated itself from other family sitcoms of the period as it centered on a dysfunctional lower-middle-class family, saw viewer interest substantially increase beginning in its third season after Michigan homemaker Terry Rakolta began a boycott to force Fox to cancel the series after objecting to risqué humor and sexual content featured in a 1989 episode. Married...s newfound success led it to become the network's longest-running live-action sitcom, airing for 11 seasons.