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. Fox has produced various shows since its launch on October 9, 1986. Fox is credited with launching the careers of such Hollywood stars as Jim Carrey (through the popular show In Living Color (1990–1994), which was also a discovery point for future Oscar winner, Jamie Foxx, as well as Shawn Wayans, Damon Wayans, and Marlon Wayans), Ben Stiller (through The Ben Stiller Show), Johnny Depp (through 21 Jump Street, (1987–1990)), and Ashton Kutcher (through That '70s Show, (1998–2006)).

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 television stations in six major U.S. media markets from John Kluge's company, Metromedia. These seed Fox stations were KTTV in Los Angeles, WFLD in Chicago, KDAF (now it is a WB affiliate owned by Tribune, which owns a stake in the WB) in Dallas, KRIV in Houston, WNEW in New York (now 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. As the FOX network grew, other affiliates would be added to this group of stations.

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 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 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 primetime programming one night at a time.

From the beginning, Fox established itself as a somewhat edgy, irreverent, youth-oriented network compared to its rivals. Its first primetime shows, which debuted on Sunday nights beginning April 5, 1987, were a comedy about a dysfunctional family (Married... with Children) and a variety show (The Tracey Ullman Show). The former would become a strong hit, airing for 11 seasons, while the latter would spawn the longest-running sitcom and animated series in American television history, The Simpsons, which was spun off in 1989 and as of 2006 is still in production. Another early success was 21 Jump Street (1987–1991), an hour long police drama.

The next two years saw the introduction of America's Most Wanted (1988), profiling true crimes in hopes of capturing the criminals, and COPS (1989), 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.

Fox debuted its Saturday night programming over four weeks beginning July 11, 1987, with several shows now long forgotten. Those shows were Mr. President, Women in Prison, The New Adventures of Beans Baxter and Second Chance. Fox would expand to seven nights a week of programming by 1993.

Despite a few successful shows, the network did not have a significant market share until the early 1990s when News Corp. bought more TV station groups, such as New World Communications, Chris-Craft Industries, BHC Communications and United Television, making it the largest owner 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). Fox management, having seen the critical role that sports programming (soccer programming in particular) had played in the growth of 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 their 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 they 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 many of their stations to Fox. Prior to this agreement many of these stations had been CBS affiliates.

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 (in 1995), Major League Baseball (in 1996), and NASCAR auto races (beginning with the 2001 season). With the exception of the NHL, they still have the broadcast rights to all of those sports today.

The early 1990s saw the launch of several soap-opera/dramas aimed at younger audiences that became quick hits: Beverly Hills 90210 (1990–2000), Melrose Place (1992–99), and Party of Five (1994–2000). September 1993 saw the heavy promotion and debut of a short-lived Western with science fiction elements, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. (1993-94). However, it was the Friday night show that debuted immediately following it, The X-Files (1993–2002), which would find long-lasting success. Several comedies ran during this period as well, including In Living Color (1990–94), The Ben Stiller Show (1992–93), and MADtv (1995–). Though Ben Stiller's show would not be a ratings success, it was nonetheless a critical success that enhanced the network's reputation. Notable shows which debuted in the late 1990s include the quirky dramedy Ally McBeal (1997–2002) and the sitcom That '70s Show (1998—).

Building around its flagship The Simpsons, Fox has been relatively successful with animated shows including Futurama (1999–2003) (as of 2006, Matt Groening is in negotiations with Fox to bring the show back), King of the Hill, and Family Guy (though Family Guy has been cancelled twice by the network, it has recently been revived). Less successful were The Critic (1994–95), which originally aired on ABC, and The PJ's (2000–02).

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, Joe Millionaire, and Married by America. During this time, Fox also featured weekly lowbrow 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 Arrested Development, 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.

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 U.S. and U.S. possessions. Fox began broadcasting in HDTV in 720p on September 12, 2004 with a series of NFL football games.

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 #1 among the 18-49 demographic most appealing to advertisers for the first time in the network's history.

Unlike the "Big Three", Fox does not air national news programs. However, Fox does air live coverage of events such as the State of the Union Address. During the sweeps of the 2002-2003 TV season, they aired a newsmagazine series called The Pulse, hosted by Fox News Channel's Shepard Smith.

Despite its popularity, Fox has also come under fire from many quarters, especially from fans of genre television. This displeasure stems from the premature cancellation of some series, such as Firefly, Keen Eddie, Tru Calling, Profit, Futurama, Wonderfalls, The Critic and Arrested Development, which will likely be cancelled at the end of the 2005-06 television season. (The cancellation of Family Guy was also criticized, and in this case the program was picked up again after strong DVD sales.) The network's justification for cancelling these programs has generally been poor ratings. Fans of these programs respond by pointing towards 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 never screened, and the subsequent episodes that were shown were played out of order. Also, Futurama was never given a consistent timeslot, eventually being relegated to 7 PM on Sundays, away from its target demographic).

During American Idol, many fans of that program accused Fox of "rigging the votes".

The Parents Television Council named Fox "The worst network to watch with your children", describing many of the shows as "100% immoral".

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 cirticism from fans of bias towards certain conferences, usually the NFC in football and the AL in baseball.

Among baseball enthusiasts, Fox's coverage of Major League Baseball is not thought of highly. Most cite "whooshing" sound effects to accompany wipes, 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 Tim McCarver used to be an analyst at CBS and ABC before he worked at Fox).

In the past few years, when Fox aired new episodes of original programing at 7 PM on Sundays during football season, some of the markets, especially on the east coast are unable to see the new episode of the scheduled show due to NFL overun. Futurama was especially victim to this network decision. Beginning with the 2005 season, Fox has extended their football postgame show to 8:00 PM (the weeks Fox has a doubleheader) or they air reruns of sitcoms (mostly The Simpsons and King of the Hill).

Malcolm in the Middle was another show that suffered from this in its 2004 season. Malcolm was scheduled to air at 7:30 PM ^[1] on Sundays, right after the postgame show. Usually, the game would end right about 7:15 PM, with the postgame show to air up until 7:30 PM, but Fox would cut to another game, until they all would end; this would cause the games to end at about 7:30 PM, and the postgame wrap-up (including highly paid advertisements and studio wrap-up) carrying on until 7:40 PM. Fox would say that they would return you to "Your normal scheduled programming", and they would air the show's intro and some commercials, getting many viewers to think that they just pushed their schedule back, like they did a year earlier. Instead, the commercials would end at 7:50 PM, allowing east coast viewers only the last 10 minutes or less of the show, which drew heavy criticism and caused heavy rumors about Malcolm in the Middle's cancellation. For its 2005 season, Fox instead moved it to 8:30 PM on Fridays. A counter criticism is that the ratings for NFL games are significantly higher than the ratings for Malcolm in the Middle. Some have also criticised Fox for not shifting to other games as quick as possible, inside of showing a commercial break. When CBS switches from one game to another, it is almost lighting quick from the end of one game to the coverage of the bonus game.

see also: 4Kids TV Fox began airing children's programming in 1990 when it launched the Fox Kids Network. Fox's childrens programing featured many cartoons and some live-action series including Bobby's World, 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.

In 2002, Fox Kids would change its name to the FoxBox. In 2004, 4Kids Entertainment made a four-year deal to supply Fox with 4Kids' own produced series and the lineup would become known as 4Kids TV.

Fox advertises its childrens programming in the early evening hours on Sundays (except during NFL games) as opposed to Friday nights as NBC does when it advertises select programs from its Discovery Kids lineup.

Some Fox stations decide to pass along Fox's 4Kids TV block to another station in their market (either an independent station or a UPN affiliate) so they can air general entertainment or local news programming in the Saturday morning slot. WFLD 32 in Chicago, for example, has recently moved the 4KidsTV schedule to WPWR-TV Channel 50, which is an UPN affiliate while Channel 32 airs news and children's programming in place of the shows.

Fox stations that have dropped Fox's childrens program block usually move the block to UPN affiliates because UPN stations usually have freed-up schedules on weekend mornings since UPN's own kids programming lineup dematerialized in 2002. Some WB stations also decide to pass along their Kids' WB block to another station in their market so they can air general entertainment programming on Saturday mornings.

1. ^ Times given in the Eastern Time Zone.

Fox's brief history and rapid rise as a television network has been the subject of two books. The first book, Outfoxed, ISBN 0312039042, was originally published in 1990, and details the network's beginning and little else, as the network was only a couple years old at the time. The second book, The Fourth Network, ISBN 1566635721, was published in 2004 by Daniel M. Kimmel, and details the complete history of the network (up to the 2003-04 television season).

• Friday night death slot
• Fox Sports
• List of Fox affiliates
• List of programs broadcast by Fox
• List of United States television networks
• 4Kids TV
• Fox slogans

• Fox website
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