Fox Broadcasting Company

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.

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). Another sketch-comedy series, MADtv 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."