Rescue: HI-Surf, about the lifeguard life on Hawaii’s North Shore, premieres on Fox September 22. The drama comes from Matt Kester, executive producer and co-showrunner. He grew up in Hawaii, surfed a lot and saw how much more lifeguards do than sit and soak up sun. 

“We see lifeguards a little differently there, a little bit like a guardian angel,” he said. 

The show is shot entirely in Hawaii. Before shooting began, cast members were informed they’d be in for a real workout. “We were very upfront with everyone we considered, that this was going to be a physical job,” Kester said. “They knew they would be in for an immersive experience.”

Training began a couple of weeks before production and the cast “became very capable, competent water people,” Kester said. 

The cast includes Robbie Magasiva, Arielle Kebbel and Adam Demos.

Kester spent “a ton of time” observing and chatting with lifeguards to get the characters right. “You realize as you listen to them, the incredible experience they have with rescues,” he said. “They essentially have Ph.D.s in the ocean.”

John Wells is an executive producer. Kester and Wells worked together on Animal Kingdom. 

What about Rescue stands out? “It’s entertaining and fun and beautiful to look
at, and it’s about people doing good things, trying to save people,” Kester said. “There’s a positive message behind it. I’m done with the antihero.”

Matlock, a rethink of the Andy Griffith legal drama from days of yore, starts on CBS with a sneak peek September 22. Kathy Bates portrays Madeline “Matty” Matlock. 

Executive producer/showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman had Bates in mind for the title role from the start. She was sent Snyder Urman’s script, and they met. Bates loved the script, said don’t change a word of it, and adored the character as well. 

“She gave me a huge gift,” said Snyder Urman. 

Bates then pulled up her laptop and the two got to work. 

Snyder Urman described the show as a series with “layers.” 

“It’s not solely a procedural,” she said. “There’s a big overarching mystery. There’s a lot of comedy and drama and tone changes and Kathy bridges them all. She can make you cry one moment and laugh the next moment.”

The producers and writers “are very conscious of doing a different show,” Snyder Urman said, than the one that debuted in 1986. What plays out in the courtroom will reflect what one sees in real-life news. “All of our cases deal with things we are grappling with,” she said. “It definitely has current moments in its heart.” 

Fox reported lower fourth-quarter net earnings while revenues rose.

Net income fell to $319 million, or 68 cents a share, from $375 million, or 74 cents a share, a year ago. 

The company said income was affected by a change in the value of the company’s non-operating investments. 

Revenues rose 2% to $3.09 billion.

Quarterly adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization rose 5% to $773 million because of the gain in revenues, partially offset by hire costs for soccer programming and investments in Tubi.

Affiliate-fee revenue rose 5%, with 9% growth in Fox’s television segment and a 2% gain in cable. 

Advertising revenues were flat with revenue from soccer and growth at Tubi offsetting lower ratings and ad prices at the Fox broadcast network, the company said.

“Fiscal 2024 was another successful year for Fox with very clear achievements across our portfolio, including delivering strong total company affiliate revenue growth each quarter from our ongoing renewals, cementing Tubi’s position as the most watched free TV and movie streaming service in the United States, and generating reinvigorated ratings and share growth at Fox News,” CEO Lachlan Murdoch said.

“We now carry this momentum into another major event cycle with fiscal 2025 featuring the presidential election and Super Bowl,” Murdoch said. “The soundness of our strategy, the consistency of our delivery and the strength of our financial position have never distinguished us more and underpin our confidence in the future at Fox and in delivering shareholder value.“ 

Fox said it has completed its upfront, managing increases in dollar volume for its linear and digital properties in what was expected to be a difficult market for legacy networks.

“Our focused portfolio of market-leading properties in sports, news, entertainment and streaming delivered year-over-year growth in both linear and digital advertising commitments as well as growth in overall portfolio pricing in this year’s upfront,” Fox president, advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships Jeff Collins said in a statement.

“Notably, we saw rapidly accelerating double-digit volume growth on Tubi, which is testament to its incredible momentum in the streaming marketplace,” Collins added. 

Demand was strong enough that Fox elected to sell more inventory in the upfront than in past years, rather than take a chance on pricing in the scatter market, which has been weak the past few years, sources familiar with the situation said.

This was the first upfront for Collins, who succeeded Marianne Gambelli as head of Fox ad sales earlier this year.

Fortunately for Collins, Fox’s portfolio does not include cable entertainment networks. With cord-cutting reducing viewership and programmers moving original programming from their cable networks to their streaming platforms, demand was down.

What ad buyers wanted was live programming — sports and news — and Fox has tons of that.

Buyers said demand was up for NFL games, where Fox generates the highest ratings on Sunday afternoons/ Fox also has college football, with its Saturday-afternoon games being joined by a package of Friday-night games this season.

In February Fox will air the Super Bowl, the biggest advertising event of the year. Buyers said Fox was hoping to be substantially sold out by the beginning of September, with prices ranging as high as $7.2 million for a 30-second spot.

Broadcast primetime volume on Fox was surprisingly strong, especially compared to cable’s problems.

Also Read: Fox Shares Fall Premiere Dates, Including Rookie Shows ‘Rescue: HI-Surf’ and ‘Universal Basic Guys’

With the recent wild political news, viewing of Fox News Channel was way up in July, which fueled ad demand. Fox has sold election packages for advertisers that are not shy about having their commercials appear in political coverage. Other advertisers have opted to either wait to start their flights after the election is over or to appear in the more lifestyle-oriented programming running on Fox News.

Fox’s Tubi streaming platform managed to score increased ad commitments despite heightened competition in streaming caused by the entrance of Amazon Prime Video into the market, individuals familiar with the situation said..

While a flood of inventory from Prime Video threatened to depress price in the market, Tubi’s volume continued to increase commensurate with its continuing double-digit viewership growth.

Also on the digital side, Fox’s new offering that lets advertisers buy audiences across Fox properties saw significant growth, according to Collins. OneFox “delivered a 3 times increase in volume over last year,” he said.

Earlier this month, NBCUniversal said it had finished its upfront, registering an increase in volume across broadcast, cable and streaming.

NBCU said that sports was a strong seller, along with Peacock and its digital platforms. 

Buyers said that advertisers were looking for flexibility from the networks. 

“It’s not like the old days when we had to rush to get our money down on programming,” one media agency executive said.  “With so many options out there, there are new ways to reach customers.” 

While the supply of entertainment inventory was high, ad dollars were chasing sports. 

The lack of urgency meant the framework for deals was reached weeks ago, but both sides had time to iron out details — which should work out better for the advertisers.

Despite an increase in programmatic buying, the upfront will remain an important part of the TV buying process.

“The legacy media networks still want to count their dollars and get that down in May and June, so I don’t think it will go away completely,” the agency executives said. “But people are more active throughout the year because they want more flexibility and there are more options.”

Fox has renewed animated comedy Krapopolis for a fourth season. Creator Dan Harmon announced the news at San Diego Comic-Con. Season 2 debuts Sunday, September 29. 

Krapopolis is set in mythical ancient Greece and tells the story of a dysfunctional family of humans, gods and monsters that try their hand at running the world’s first cities — without trying to kill each other. 

The voice cast includes Hannah Waddingham, Richard Ayoade, Matt Berry and Pam Murphy. 

“For all our Krap-devotees, there was no better place to decree another season of Krapopolis than the annual San Diego Comic-Con fan fest and no one better to deliver the proclamation than our brilliant creator and executive producer, Dan Harmon,” Fox president Michael Thorn said. “Dan and his team have created something special with this series, and now that Season 4 is etched in stone, we’ll be keeping those once-in-a-millennia laughs rolling on Fox Animation Domination.”

Fox had ordered the third season of Krapopolis before the show premiered in 2023. 

Krapopolis is produced by Fox’s Bento Box Entertainment. Dan Harmon is creator and executive producer. Alex Rubens is executive producer and showrunner. Steve Levy is executive producer. 

Harmon’s credits include Rick and Morty and Community. 

Fox has shared its fall premiere dates, which include beach drama Rescue: HI-Surf starting September 22; season 12 of The Masked Singer on September 25; and season 36 of The Simpsons beginning September 29. 

Animated show Universal Basic Guys gets things going September 8. From creators Adam and Craig Malamut, it is about brothers Mark and Hank Hoagies who, after losing their jobs at the hot dog factory to robots, are given $3,000 a month in a new basic income program. They use their free time and money to find purpose in a world where they’re no longer needed.

Rescue: HI-Surf premieres Sunday, September 22. From John Wells, the drama follows the personal and professional lives of the lifeguards who patrol the North Shore of Oahu. 

Rescue slides into its timeslot premiere a day later at 9 p.m., following the season five premiere of 9-1-1: Lonestar. 

Murder in a Small Town debuts Tuesday, September 24. Starring Rossif Sutherland, the mystery drama follows Karl Alberg, who moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche battered by big-city police work. He quickly learns that this paradise has a few secrets. 

Season 12 of The Masked Singer kicks off Wednesday, September 25, as does season two of The Floor, the game show hosted by Rob Lowe. 

Season 23 of Hell’s Kitchen premieres Thursday, September 26, along with season three of Crime Scene Kitchen. Gordon Ramsay hosts the former and Joel McHale the latter. 

“Fox Animation Domination” kicks off Sunday, September 29, as The Simpsons begins season 36, followed by Universal Basic Guys in its time period premiere, then season 15 of Bob’s Burgers and season two of Krapopolis. 

Season two of Accused is on Tuesday, October 1, leading into Murder in a Small Town in its time period premiere. 

“This year, we created a terrific collection of originals that deepens our network’s legacy of delivering unexpected, unforgettable characters and stories,” said Fox President Michael Thorn. “We’re bullish about the future and optimistic about the fun and engaging entertainment in store for our viewers everywhere.”

Fox College Football Friday begins September 13. 

Not yet on the schedule, but planned to premiere in the upcoming season, are dramas Alert: Missing Persons Unit, The Cleaning Lady and Doc; comedies Animal Control, Family Guy, Going Dutch, The Great North and Grimsburg; and unscripted shows Extracted, Lego Masters, Lego Masters: Celebrity Holiday Bricktacular, Next Level Chef, The Real Full Monty and Special Forces: World's Toughest Test.

Fox’s joint venture with chef Gordon Ramsay, Studio Ramsay Global, said it made a $100 million investment in kitchenware maker HexClad.

HexClad had signed on as the first sponsor of Bite, the food brand and entertainment business launched by Fox and Ramsey in May. Ramsay has been an investor in HexClad since 2021 and will now have a bigger stake in the company.

“I am honored that Studio Ramsay Global and Gordon will have a larger seat at our table as we continue to expand, evolve and innovate at HexClad," co-founder Daniel Winer said. "From day one, content partnerships have been central to our success. Now this alliance allows us to marry our products with the world’s best food content studio in a thrilling new way.”

Fox said the $100 million investment is a combination of cash and media commitments.

“Since forming Studio Ramsay Global three years ago, Gordon and his team have identified innovative new ways to bring his iconic food brand to life, creating great original entertainment and platforms from Next Level Chef to Bite, while showcasing incredible new culinary talent,” Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade said. “This recipe for success just keeps growing and improving as we forge new strategic partnerships with globally recognized, premium brands like HexClad.” 

Known for its hexagon pattern, HexClad is digitally native, direct-to-consumer brand that has created a hybrid category by inventing stainless cookware that is also non-stick.

“HexClad stands out as one of the world’s fastest growing, highest quality and most respected cookware brands, which is why it’s my go-to in the kitchen, and I firmly believe in its long-term growth potential,” said Ramsay. “We’ve already had successful brand collaborations across many of my Fox series, and now we’ll expand that partnership into something even more meaningful to food fans and consumers everywhere.”

The UEFA Euro 2024 soccer tournament Round of 16 and ESPN’s UFC 303 mixed martial arts pay-per-view event highlight the live televised sports events airing during the last weekend of June.  

FS1on Saturday will televise UEFA Euro 2024 matches between Switzerland and Italy, and Germany and Denmark. On Sunday, Fox will cover the England-Slovakia and Spain-Georgia matches. 

In the NWSL on Saturday, ESPN will televise the Bay FC-Racing Louisville FC game while Ion airs the Washington Spirit-North Carolina Courage and Utah Royals-Portland Thorns FC matches. 

In the octagon, ESPN will distribute the UFC 303 pay-per-view event featuring the Alex Pereira-Jiri Prochazka light heavyweight championship rematch bout. Pereira defeated Prochazka in UFC 295 this past November. In the boxing ring, ESPN on Saturday will air the junior welterweight title fight between titleholder Teofimo Lopez and Steve Claggett, while DAZN streams the WBC junior bantamweight title bout between champion Juan Francisco Estrada and Jesse Rodriguez. 

In golf, CBS and Golf Channel will offer weekend coverage of the Rocket Mortgage Classic, and NBC and Golf Channel will televise the US Senior Open. 

ABC will offer weekend coverage of the X Games from Ventura, Calif. On the baseball field, Roku Tv will stream a Sunday morning matchup between the Pittsburgh Pirates and Atlanta Braves, while ESPN’s Sunday Night Baseball telecast will feature the World Series Champion Texas Rangers and the Baltimore Orioles.

On the basketball court, ESPN on Sunday will air a WNBA doubleheader featuring the Atlanta Dream-New York Liberty and Indiana Fever-Phoenix Mercury matchups. 

This is the man who changed my life.

I first met Jamie Kellner on my second day at Fox — in May of 1987. I’d come from CBS. It was a really stiff environment and I was not a good fit. It wasn’t going well.

Also Read: TV Business Pioneer Jamie Kellner, Creator of the Fox and WB Networks, Dead at 77

I started two days before the big annual programming presentation (the upfront) to advertisers showing what programs they could buy ad time in for the coming year. Our presentation was at the Boathouse in Central Park. On brand for Fox … different, cool, unique. We are kind of outdoors, and it’s pouring rain. Pouring. As I am milling about, waiting for clients to show up I see this guy in a suit bending down and wiping the floor with napkins. He pops up and Dave Cassaro says, “Jed, meet Jamie Kellner.” The network president is wiping the floor. Clearly this isn't CBS. I knew right away that Fox was a network I could thrive in.

Jamie built a free-wheeling environment. Contribute more where you can. So I did. I asked if I could chase the NFL’s upcoming TV contract. “Sure,” he said, “just let me know how it’s going.” Just like that. Go ahead. I wrote a script for the Fox comedy Get a Life. They offered me a job in programming! That doesn’t happen at CBS! Or NBC! Or ABC! (I didn’t do it.) That’s the company Jamie built.

He left Fox. I saw a Wall Street Journal story that Warner Bros. was starting a network run by … Jamie Kellner. He hired Fox veterans in programming and marketing. “Please Jamie … call me.” Two months went by. I walked in after a long day and my wife Patty said: ”Carmella [Jamie’s asst.] called. She asked you to call Jamie.”  

Jamie said: “I’m getting the Fox band back together. Come and build the sales department for us.”   

He had only two rules: “Don’t ever be afraid to tell me the truth, no matter how bad it is,” and, “I will entertain where you need me but I am not staying out all night. I’m too old.”  

Our ad-buying customers loved him. They genuinely rooted for him to succeed. He respected them and their role in our future. He had fun with them, too. We attended a luncheon hosted by the Detroit Ad Club. Jamie was the featured speaker. The host was an attractive woman with a big job in the auto industry. When she introduced Jamie to the crowd she touched on his accomplishments and finished by saying, somewhat flirtatiously, “all that … and he’s quite charming too!” Jamie got to the mic: “Aw, you're easy!” Classic Jamie.  

After I left The WB, I wrote him one or two times a year to touch base. He asked about work, recommended me for a few jobs. He cared. I saw him one last time in Montecito, maybe three years ago, at lunch with my WB buddies Bob Bibb and Lew Goldstein. He was a little slower but he still had that easy laugh.  We talked about our old TV business and the three of us just listened to him.  It was a pleasant time that we wished had gone on longer but he tired out so we drove him home and said goodbye.

Many of us in the industry over the years owe Jamie thanks.  By starting two different networks, he created a slew of jobs and started a ton of careers — not just at the respective networks but studio jobs for showrunners, writers, producers, directors, casting execs … the whole programming drill. And TV stations … so many created during Fox's growth … that needed news divisions and staffing … and also created vast fortunes for those enterprising few who built groups and then sold them. So give Jamie a nod of thanks today.

Jamie left a big imprint on my life. A fun, smart, really good guy. I will miss him. 

Fox said it has expanded its relationship with The Trade Desk.

Fox’s streaming platform Tubi was an early adopter of The Trade Desk’s Unified ID 2.0 identity system and OpenPath technology.

Fox is using UID2 to give advertisers the tools to transact on addressable inventory with greater precision, and OpenPath to provide advertisers more direct access to its premium inventory.

Trade Desk clients can now get access to more of Fox’s ad inventory through an integration between The Trade Desk and AdRise, the ad-tech platform for CTV and linear inventory developed by Tubi.

AdRise was acquired by Fox as part of its $440 million purchase of Tubi in 2020. AdRise processes both linear and CTV inventory across Fox Entertainment, Fox Sports, Fox News Media and Tubi.

“Our partnership with Fox represents a win-win for advertisers and the industry at large. It not only creates value for our shared advertisers but moves the industry forward towards an addressable and efficient marketplace,“ The Trade Desk CEO and founder Jeff Green said. “By combining Unified ID 2.0 and OpenPath, Fox’s forward-leaning approach to innovation represents a major opportunity for advertisers to apply data to their media investments on the premium, open internet.

“Fox is pioneering price discovery and helping create the new identity fabric of the open internet,” Green said. “This latest innovation in the long-term partnership between Fox and The Trade Desk represents a step forward for our industry.”

The new integrations of The Trade Desk into Fox’s platform is designed to help Fox sell more ads and help advertisers reach target audiences and measure campaign performance.

“The commitment to the deepening of our relationship with The Trade Desk highlights our belief in their vision for premium content and a more open Internet. Through our market leading brands and our AdRise technology platform, Fox and Tubi are at the forefront of enabling new and impactful ways for advertisers to reach and engage with authenticated audiences, at scale,” said Paul Cheesbrough, CEO of Fox’s Tubi Media Group.

“Our extended partnership with The Trade Desk builds upon many successful years of working with each other and signals the next chapter — one where we move towards a more deeply integrated marketplace and collaborate around key industry issues like transparency and identity,” Cheesbrough said.

TMZ looks into the marriage of Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck when TMZ Investigates: JLo & Ben: Missed Warning Signs airs on Fox Sunday, June 16. The special, looking at why the stars’ marriage “may have been doomed from the start,” according to TMZ, will be on Hulu a day later. 

Lopez and Affleck married in 2022. People has mentioned “marital woes” of late while TMZ said the pair “is clearly hurtling toward divorce,” with Affleck renting a home in Brentwood and the couple looking to sell their Beverly Hills manse, which they had bought for $61 million. 

The series is executive produced by Harvey Levin, Ryan Regan, Don Nash, Charles Latibeaudiere and Jess Fusco. 

Previous TMZ investigations include a look into Michael Jackson’s death, a new wrinkle to the September 11 tragedy and the disappearance of fitness guru Richard Simmons. 

After sending a letter to top executives at Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery in April, questioning them about their Venu Sports joint venture, congressional Democrats Jerry Nadler and Joaquin Castro said they found the responses "insufficient." 

So they sent a follow-up missive. 

The most recent memo, dated June 7, claims the JV will unite the owners of 80% of all U.S. sports media content under one umbrella. And it could reduce competition, risk the privacy of users and lead to collusion.

Venu came under fire shortly after it was introduced in February. Virtual pay TV provider Fubo filed an antitrust lawsuit, claiming that the deal would hurt competition and inflate prices for viewers.

Other critics soon, including Nadler, Castro and U.S. Justice Department, which is also investigating the JV, soon joined in.

Also Read: Nearly 60% of Sports Fans Age 18-49 Say They'll 'Likely' Subscribe to Venu Sports

“We still have not received answers about the firewalls your companies may implement to prevent collusion,” they wrote. “The precautions you may take to ensure consumer privacy; or the methods you may use to determine pricing of the new service.”

The two congressmen added that the “vague assurances” Venu partners have provided thus far seem “contradictory. They said the lack of key details (like price and launch date) “hard to believe.”

“Your companies exert unmatched control over the entire sports media ecosystem,” they wrote. “Without care, your joint venture has the potential to reshape this already-concentrated space to the detriment of consumers, sports leagues, and third-party distributors.”

The new letter asks for answers to seven questions by June 21. Nadler and Castro also requested that the Department of Justice be copied on the response, as it reportedly plans to inspect the joint venture.

Representatives for Venu replied to the initial letter in late April, calling the service “pro-consumer, additive viewing option for sports viewers” that will address the increasingly “fragmented and complicated” sports-streaming landscape.

“Nothing will be exclusive to the new streaming service -- every linear network available on this new streaming service will continue to be available to consumers across all existing methods, including traditional cable, satellite TV, and streaming video platforms like Hulu+Live and YouTubeTV,” company executives wrote.

According to Venu partners, the service is set to launch this fall, with an expected engagement of 1 million subscribers by the end of the year, and 5 million within five years.

Fox said it will be introducing dynamic ad insertion for college football games it televises as part of an expanded relationship with FreeWheel, Comcast’s ad-tech company.

The new relationship makes FreeWheel Fox’s primary ad-serving partner and main monetization engine.

Dynamic ad insertion will enable advertisers to better target campaigns, while showing viewers more relevant commercials.

“The TV ad marketplace is very complex and when we thought about who is doing a great job helping advertisers to cut through that clutter and drive ROI, FreeWheel clearly stood out,” Darren Sherriff, senior VP, advertising technology solutions at Fox, said. “We’re thrilled to be able to offer our advertising partners a powerful way to reach engaged audiences across the entire Fox portfolio, including our premium live sports events, while prioritizing and protecting the viewer experience.” 

FreeWheel is also integrating with Fox’s AdRise technology platform enabling Fox to find contextually relevant content that will boost the performance of advertiser message. 

In football games, that means creating opportunities to mesh ads with information about players, teams or scores. 

“We are excited and proud to strengthen our relationship with Fox,” Katy Loria, chief revenue officer at FreeWheel, said. “Our antidote to today’s complicated ad landscape is to provide technology and solutions to help further accelerate the momentum, growth and innovation behind premium video. As Fox’s primary ad serving partner, we are looking forward to working with them — and advertisers — to drive better business results.”

Fox said it will use analytics company datafuelX’s M3 platform to create optimized data-driven linear media plans aimed at advanced audience targets.

datafuelX will use audience information from Nielsen’s panel and big data ratings and VideoAmp to mount campaigns on Fox’s broadcast and cable properties starting in the third quarter.

In April, Fox said it would use AdRise–the tech platform acquired when Fox bought streaming service Tubi–for its OneFox audience network, which includes both linear and CTV inventory.

“Today, it is table stakes for buyers to have more precise advanced audience guarantees, and data-driven linear provides just that,” said Darren Sherriff, senior VP, advanced ad Solutions at Fox. “With our trusted partner datafuelX, we are confident that M3 will provide us with the tools to optimize opportunities in this space.”

Fox will also use datafuelX’s DemoPlus to target viewers to expand campaign reach beyond data-driven linear.

“With the industry shifting to an audience-centric, multi-currency marketplace, it’s critical for sellers to provide marketers with agnostic solutions that can effectively forecast, optimize, and steward deals against any currency and any audience to drive outcomes,” said Jay Amato, CEO at datafuelX. “With M3, FOX can do just that to assure buyers of the value their inventory offers, realize greater yield, and ultimately increase revenue. We are pleased to add Fox Networks to our growing roster of clients.”

Season four of Trying, with Rafe Spall and Esther Smith as a married couple with two adopted children, has begun on Apple TV Plus. The season jumps ahead six years, and daughter Princess is focused on finding her birth mother. 

Spall said the six-year jump stops a show from getting set in its ways. “It’s a way of shaking things up a bit,” he said in an interview. “Pushing the envelope, moving the story forward in a way which is fresh and interesting.”

Nikki and Jason’s relationship has been redefined as they’ve evolved into parents. “Inevitably, because of their different roles to each other now in a household,” said Smith, “they’ve become less of just being each other’s partners.”

Nikki is a romantic, added Smith, and has to deal with “the loss of who they once were with each other.”

The actors said they hear from viewers who relate to the show, whether they have adopted, have been adopted, or have battled fertility challenges. Smith mentioned DMs she gets on Instagram. “People share really personal stories with how much they feel they’re represented by the show or feel less alone,” she said. “That’s such a lovely thing to read.”

The 1% Club, an offbeat game show with Patton Oswalt as host, starts on Fox June 3, following its premiere on Prime Video. The show is not so much about answering trivia questions, but how quickly the players can use logic to come up with an intelligent answer. 

“It has nothing to do with education or trivia or information,” Oswalt said. “It has to do with, how does your brain work in the moment? How fast are you on your feet with logic and intuition and, especially, listening and putting things into context?”

Oswalt had no game show host experience previously. He was sent episodes, loved the format and saw how much interacting the host does with the 100 contestants. “The fact that it dealt with so much crowd work, thinking on my feet,” he said, “I thought, ‘This could be energizing for me.’ ”

Asked about game show hosts he’s enjoyed, Oswalt mentioned a couple from Family Feud. Richard Dawson “brought a very distinct, almost un-game-show-like personality to a very structured show,” he said. 

Steve Harvey, meanwhile, “is having fun and making it his own thing,” he said. 

Oswalt also mentioned Drew Carey on The Price Is Right: “He’s so clearly having a ball.”

Did Oswalt ever see himself joining the host club? “It had never crossed my mind in a million years,” he said. “And I love it.” 

The NHL’s march to the Stanley Cup Final, the UFC 302 pay-per-view event and the final week of the UFL’s regular season highlight the list of live TV sports events airing during the first weekend of June. 

The NHL playoffs continue on Saturday with ABC’s telecast of Game 6 of the New York Rangers-Florida Panthers Eastern Conference Final, with the Panthers holding a 3-2 lead. On Sunday, TNT will televise Game 6 of the Dallas Stars-Edmonton Oilers Western Conference Final, which is tied at two games apiece heading into Friday night’s action.

In the octagon, ESPN will distribute the UFC 302 mixed martial arts pay-per-view event featuring the main event bout between lightweight champion Islam Makhachev and Dustin Poirier. 

On the football field, the UFL’s final regular season weekend takes place with ESPN airing Saturday’s Michigan Panthers-Birmingham Stallions game and Fox airing the San Antonio Brahmas-St. Louis Battlehawks game. On Sunday, ESPN will televise the Arlington Renegades-D.C. Defenders contest, while Fox carries the Houston Roughnecks-Memphis Showboats game. 

On the racetrack, Fox on Saturday will air the NASCAR Truck Toyota 200 race. On Sunday, USA Network will televise the IndyCar Chevrolet Detroit Grand Prix race and FS1 will air the NASCAR Cup Enjoy Illinois 300 race. 

On the links, NBC will offer weekend final-round coverage of the U.S. Women’s Open, while CBS and Golf Channel air the PGA’s Canadian Open tournament. 

The 1% Club, a game show hosted by Patton Oswalt, debuts on Prime Video May 23 and then on Fox June 3. The show is not so much about answering trivia questions, but about applying logic, reasoning skills and common sense, according to Prime Video. 

The 1% Club “is a chance to test how your brain works through a series of questions that all have a right answer but can also lead to a series of entertaining wrong answers along the way,” said Fox. 

Each episode begins with 100 contestants, and they are whittled down with each wrong answer. At the end, the remaining contestants aim to answer a question that only 1% of the country, based on a scientific survey, can get right. 

Oswalt has never hosted a game show, and told B+C he never even thought about doing so. “It never crossed my mind in a million years,” he said. 

The 1% Club has aired in the U.K. Oswalt was sent episodes of the show, and started to envision himself as host. “I loved the format, I loved the energy of it,” he said, “and how non-conventional it was, with the audience and contestants.” 

The host mixes and mingles with the 100 contestants, and Oswalt saw potential there. “I thought, ‘This could be energizing for me,’” he said. 

Oswalt played Spence in The King of Queens and was adult Adam and the narrator on The Goldbergs. He has also appeared in Parks and Recreation, A.P. Bio, Community and Veep, among many other series and films. 

He said he prepares for hosting The 1% Club “by not preparing.”

“I feel like, if I watched other game shows, I’d pick up their pattern and their rhythm, and it would make me less spontaneous and less present when I’m talking to people,” said Oswalt. “I treat it as if I am going to a gathering with a bunch of people and I’m gonna be wandering around the room, meeting people and talking. And that’s exactly how I think about it.”

Asked about game show hosts he’s enjoyed over the years, Oswalt mentioned Richard Dawson and Steve Harvey on The Family Feud, and Drew Carey on The Price is Right. He also mentioned being on Hollywood Squares alongside Whoopi Goldberg. Tom Bergeron was the host, “but she was the fuel that kept it going,” said Oswalt. “It wasn’t, oh god, we’re on a game show. It was, we get to do this. Do you know how lucky we are to get to do a game show? That kind of enthusiasm is infectious and fun.”

Oswalt hopes to bring that same level of enthusiasm to The 1% Club. 

He offers a tip on successful gameplay: “The harder questions, they will give away the answer in the question the way that it’s asked, if you listen very, very carefully,” Oswalt said. “Some people pick up on that and some people don’t.” 

Fox’s upfront presentation, at The Manhattan Center Monday, May 13, kicked off with Michael Strahan and Gordon Ramsay. Strahan said telling the attendees why they should buy ads would be like him running a kitchen, and Strahan said it would be like him playing defensive end. So they turned to a pro, in Jeff Collins, president of ad sales, marketing and brand partnerships, Fox. 

“Innovation has brought profound change to our industry. While some see disruption, we see opportunity,” he said. 

Collins teased the Super Bowl and the presidential election, among other blockbuster events Fox will have on its air. 

Next out was Jon Hamm, executive producer of animated show Grimsburg, on which he plays Marvin Flute. “The show is so special, so unexpected…,” he began, before Will Arnett, host of Lego Masters, interrupted. He had a gift for the guy who plays Marvin Flute–a flute made of Legos. 

Neither Hamm nor Arnett could play it, so Joel McHale, in the cast of Animal Control and host of Crime Scene Kitchen, came out to give it a try. 

Next was Erin Andrews, talking up sports, including women’s NCAA basketball, including a December matchup between USC and UConn with an NFL lead-in. “It’s the game of the season,” she said. 

She introduced Anjali Sud, CEO of Tubi TV. “Tubi is resonating because we stand for something,” she said–entertainment for the cordless generation. 

She mentioned the streaming network’s 200-plus original shows, and Lauren Graham stepped out to talk up her show, The Z Suite, which she called a “multigenerational workplace storyline.” She then translated the Gen Z talk for the crowd as Siena Agudong and Noah Beck shared about their film The QB Bad Boy and Me. 

Then it was Rob Lowe, host of game show The Floor, and in the cast of 9-1-1: Lone Star. 

Season five is “full throttle, with the emergencies and disasters that keep you on the edge of your seat,” Lowe said. 

He then shared about Rescue: HI Surf, a John Wells lifeguard drama that gets Fox’s post Super Bowl slot. Lowe said Wells has produced “some of the most beloved prestige TV of all time.”

Next out was Molly Parker, star of new drama Doc, which she described as “as heart-racing as it is heart-wrenching.”

Strahan, Curt Menefee and Rob Gronkowski were out to talk football, and Fox Sports’ visits to military sites. This season will feature a trip to Coronado, California to meet with the Navy Seals. “Those SEALS do not mess around,” said Gronkowski. 

Menefee segued into other “heroes,” he said, in introducing correspondent Benjamin Hall of Fox News. Hall was seriously injured reporting from Ukraine in 2022. He got a standing ovation as he walked out. “From Ukraine to the Middle East and here at home,” Hall said, Fox News journalists keep America informed.

He said hello to correspondent Trey Yingst, reporting in Israel. Yingst said to Hall, “we’re proud to call you both a colleague and a friend.”

Bret Baier and Dana Perino of Fox News spoke about the election. “We’ll be with America every step of the way,” said Baier. 

They spoke about enhancing coverage with augmented reality and election results down to counties. “This is, no doubt, the Super Bowl of news,” said Perino. 

Then it was Anthony Anderson talking about The Real Full Monty, which sees stars, including Taye Diggs, Tyler Posey and Bruno Tonioli, strip to draw attention to cancer. 

Anderson said he’s hitting the gym, being trained by Gronk and Strahan, to get ready for his unclothing. 

The event DJ, Corinne Fox, introduced her father Jamie, who she works on Beat Shazam with. “Nothing beats working with my dad on Beat Shazam,” she said. 

Jamie Foxx spoke about Fox airing an MLB game at Rickwood Field, which he called America’s oldest ballpark, and one with a rich tradition in the Negro Leagues. He then introduced Derek Jeter and Alex Rodriguez. 

Jeter said he “couldn’t be prouder” about Fox airing the game, and “wouldn’t be where I am today without the sacrifices” of Negro Leagues players. 

Gordon Ramsay came back out with Lisa Vanderpump to talk about Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars, which begins a new season May 22 and sees them each managing a team. “I’m here to talk about our favorite f-word,” said Vanderpump. 

No, not that word. Food. 

“Lisa and I go back a long way,” said Ramsay. 

Joel McHale and Ken Jeong teased each other from the cheap seats. “You were my second favorite guest star on Animal Control this year,” said McHale, Jeong just behind a sloth. 

Then it was Gus Johnson of Fox Sports introducing Deion Sanders, coach of the University of Colorado football team. Sanders said he’s been shopping on the player portal, and “can’t wait to unveil them in front of you all.”

Talk then turned to the FIFA World Cup in the U.S. in 2026. With the final in New Jersey, Strahan noted how MetLife Stadium, his longtime home base, will finally host a champion. 

Then he brought Tom Brady, who joins the Fox football team as an analyst, out. He said his first meeting with Fox reminded him of “the amazing teammates I had for a long period of time.” Brady said he’s psyched to “be a part of the game” once again, and can’t wait to be on “the greatest telecast in football every single week.”

Fox will open with the Dallas Cowboys. 

The football crew of Kevin Burkhardt, Erin Andrews and Tom Rinaldi were out next to welcome Brady. “With two minutes left in the game, a tie game, who better to analyze it?” said Burkhardt. 

Brady was known for his “let’s f***ing go!” cheer, which Strahan said would not work on broadcast TV. Ramsay saw it differently. “If Tom Brady wants to use the f-word, I think we should let him,” he said, so he, Strahan and Brady wrapped things up with that exuberant utterance. 

With the Super Bowl in New Orleans, the Preservation Hall Jazz Band came out. Ninety minutes after it kicked off, the Fox upfront was done. 

Fox FAST Tubi on Monday announced a slate of upcoming projects for the upcoming 2024-25 "season." (Yes, apparently FAST platforms now have seasons.)

Tubi's "Upfront" programming announcement includes these shows:

* Tubi’s Purple Carpet will be rolled out for the first time as part of Fox's Super Bowl pregame coverage in New Orleans next February. Model and actress Olivia Culpo will be Tubi's official correspondent, celebrating the culture surrounding football’s biggest event by adding the spectacle of fashion and entertainment to the mix. 

* A Tubi original movie, The QB Bad Boy and Me, will be based on a breakout Wattpad young-adult novel, which has more than 31 million reads. It tells the story of Dallas (Siena Agudong, who stars in Netflix's Resident Evil), a burdened but headstrong dancer, who is determined to get into the best dance school in the country — her late mother’s alma mater. However, that dream is suddenly derailed when the cheeky yet secretly grieving football star, Drayton (Noah Beck), crashes into her life. 

* Tubi will also premiere the workplace comedy The Z-Suite, starring Lauren Graham, in 2025. The generational comedy set in a New York ad agency is written by Katie O’Brien (The Santa Clauses, Teachers),  who also serves as show-runner.

Fox announced last week that it has surpassed 80 million active users, and the media conglomerate is making investments in original content to keep the viewership growing. 

“Tubi is committed to culturally relevant storytelling that speaks to the cordless generation,” said Adam Lewinson, chief content officer at Tubi, in a statement. “From culture driven pre-game coverage for the Big Game, to a fan favorite movie based on a breakout YA novel, to the amazing Lauren Graham headlining a workplace comedy steeped in generational conflict, Tubi’s ’24-’25 slate is as compelling for our audience as it is desirable for advertisers.”

Fox will share its 2024-2025 schedule at its upfront presentation May 13 in New York, with new shows such as Denis Leary single-cam comedy Going Dutch and the John Wells action drama Rescue: HI-Surf in the lineup. 

Mondays will have 9-1-1: Lonestar and Rescue: HI-Surf, Tuesdays have Accused and Murder in a Small Town, Wednesdays offer The Masked Singer and The Floor, Thursdays air Hell’s Kitchen and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test, Fridays have college football, basketball and the United Football League, Saturdays have sports, and Sundays have NFL On Fox, The OT/animation reruns, then The Simpsons, Universal Basic Guys, Bob’s Burgers and Krapopolis. 

“With outstanding original ideas and world-class talent across both new series and returning favorites, Fox’s 2024-25 schedule is filled with unexpected, unforgettable entertainment in every genre,” said Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade. “Great creative is the center of all we do, and that is reflected in next season’s lineup, as is our ability to attract so many of the industry’s finest storytellers.”   

Returning series include dramas 9-1-1: Lone Star (season five), Accused (season two), Alert: Missing Persons Unit (season three) and The Cleaning Lady (season four); comedy Animal Control (season three); animated series Bob's Burgers (season 15), Family Guy (season 23), The Great North (season five), Grimsburg (season two), Krapopolis (season two) and The Simpsons (season 36); and unscripted series Crime Scene Kitchen (season three), The Floor (season two), Hell's Kitchen (season 23), Lego Masters (season five), The Masked Singer (season 12), MasterChef (season 15), Name That Tune (season five), Next Level Chef (season four) and Special Forces: World's Toughest Test (season three). 

Additional series renewals will be announced later.

Fox did not say when Going Dutch will premiere. 

Other new shows include psychological crime procedural Murder in a Small Town, medical drama Doc and animated comedy Universal Basic Guys. 

Fox will have the Super Bowl Sunday, February 9, after which Rescue: HI-Surf debuts. "There’s no platform like the Super Bowl," said Dan Harrison, executive VP, program planning and content strategy, Fox, on a press call. 

Rescue: HI-Surf follows the personal and professional lives of the lifeguards who protect the North Shore of Oahu. In the cast are Robbie Magasiva, Arielle Kebbel and Adam Demos. Michael Thorn, Fox president, called it "an absolute adrenaline-rush action series" with "real franchise potential."

Rescue: HI-Surf is co-produced by Warner Bros. Television and Fox Entertainment Studios. Matt Kester created the series. 

Based on an Italian series, Doc has Molly Parker as a hard-charging doctor in Minneapolis. After a brain injury erases the last eight years of her life, she has no recollection of patients she’s treated, colleagues she’s crossed, the soulmate she divorced, the man she now loves and the tragedy that caused her to push everyone away. She can rely only on her estranged teen daughter for info. 

Murder in a Small Town is based on the book series Karl Alberg, by L.R. Wright. Rossif Sutherland and Kristin Kreuk star. The show follows Alberg, who moves to a quiet coastal town to soothe a psyche that has been battered by big-city police work. But this gentle paradise has more than its share of secrets, Fox teases. 

Fox called the show a "cozy crime drama."

Going Dutch centers on a loudmouth U.S. Army colonel, who, after an unfiltered rant, is reassigned to the Netherlands, where he is punished with a command position at the least important army base in the world. He now finds himself in charge of a base with no guns, no weapons and no tactical purpose. Denis Leary stars. 

Universal Basic Guys comes from Adam and Craig Malamut and centers on brothers who lose their jobs to automation and are given $3,000 a month in a new basic income program. They use their free time and money to find purpose in a world where they’re no longer needed. 

Unscripted shows include competition series Extracted, where “the contestants are not in charge of their destiny.”

The special The Real Full Monty shows a group of male celebrities who volunteer to bare all to raise awareness for prostate and testicular cancer. It features Anthony Anderson, Taye Diggs, the NFL's Chris Jones, Tyler Posey, Bruno Tonioli and James Van Der Beek. Anderson produces. 

Fox called the show "the most revealing performance of their careers."

Near Christmas, Lego Masters holds its multiple-night Celebrity Holiday Bricktacular. 

New cast members on Accused include Felicity Huffman, William H. Macy, Nick Cannon and Michael Chiklis.

Fox ordered two seasons of Rob Lowe game show The Floor, and inked a first-look unscripted development deal with Lowe. It also ordered two seasons of Universal Basic Guys.

Fox presents at The Manhattan Center Monday, May 13. 

Tubi now has 80 million average monthly users, up from 67 million a year ago, parent company Fox said, with a 36% year-over-year uptick in platform usage driving revenue up by more than 22% from January to March.

That’s in the face of a down fiscal Q3 for Fox’s broader television segment, which saw a 22% decrease in quarterly revenues due to the lack of the Super Bowl.

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said in the company’s quarterly financial report that those losses would have been even greater if they weren’t “offset by continued growth at Tubi.”

Also read: Fox Has Net Income of $666 Million in 3rd Quarter

In the latest iteration of Nielsen’s “The Gauge” report, which tracks market share for total U.S. TV viewing, Tubi accounted for 1.6% of all U.S. TV watching in March.

That puts Tubi ahead of other ad-supported streaming services including Peacock, Roku Channel and Pluto TV, and even subscription streaming platforms like Max and Paramount Plus.

Murdoch noted that in March 2023, the Tubi accounted for only 1% of total American viewing.

“Tubi finished only marginally behind Disney Plus in market share,” Murdoch said, noting that Tubi's expansion was “faster than any streaming service during the same time.”

Murdoch also revealed on the company’s earnings conference call that 90% of Tubi viewing is on-demand, meaning customers seek out and actively engage with the content they’re watching, rather than just turning on a live channel.

“It’s very important,” Murdoch said, "because when the viewing comes on demand as opposed to passively sitting back and watching our FAST channels, that’s much more valuable to advertisers.

“We are looking forward to showcasing Tubi’s strengths at next week’s upfronts,” Murdoch added.

Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said his company, The Walt Disney Co. and  Warner Bros. Discovery are in a two-minute drill to get their streaming sports joint venture to market. 

“We’ve already launched an internal beta service, which I have been trialing this past week,” Murdoch said on Fox’s earnings call Wednesday. “And I have to say it’s an incredibly exciting product and we can’t wait to launch it this fall.”

Under CEO Pete Distad, the joint venture has already hired more than 150 engineers and executives who are “dedicated to building a unique, innovative product, which focuses on sports fans outside of the traditional TV bundle,” Murdoch said.

Apparently, the service does have a name but it hasn’t been announced yet. Murdoch went out of his way to make sure he didn’t inadvertently spill those beans.

One analyst pointed out that in Disney’s filings, it was noted that the final definitive agreement among the three partners had not been signed.

“I wouldn’t read anything into final deal terms being signed,“ Murdoch said. “It’s just a matter of everyone running on all cylinders to get this finished.”

While Murdoch has been able to test the platform’s interface, he noted that “there’s a ton of work and engineering behind that in ingesting content from multiple partners and being able to combine that into one seamless platform.”

Asked if Fox’s streaming platform Tubi might be linked to the new sports venture, Murdoch said it was more likely the venture would be bundled with other SVOD services.

Murdoch didn’t address the antitrust suit brought by Fubo against the venture.

Fox reported a profit for its fiscal third quarter.

Fox had net income of $666 million, or $1.40 a share in the quarter. A year ago, the company reported a net loss of $54 million, or 10 cents a share, as it settled a lawsuit by voting-machine maker Dominion Systems, paying $787.5 million.

Revenues fell to $3.45 billion from $4.08 billion.

The results were better than Wall Street forecasts.

Affiliate-fee revenue increased 4%, with Fox’s television business seeing a 9% increase, while its cable networks added 1%.

Also Read: Lachlan Murdoch Sees Progress Toward Sports Streaming Product

Advertising revenue fell 34% to $1.24 billion from $1.88 billion a year ago, when Fox broadcast the Super Bowl. Fox aired fewer NFL games in the quarter compared to the year-ago period. Taking out the NFL changes, Fox said ad revenue would have been up for the quarter by low single digits.

Revenue for Tubi, Fox’s free ad-supported streaming service, rose 22% as viewing time grew 36% and monthly active users reached nearly 80 million.

“Fox’s fiscal third-quarter results once again demonstrate how our unique strategy continues to distinguish Fox from our peers,” CEO Lachlan Murdoch said.

“The strength and leadership of our core brands, coupled with our focus on live content and must-have event programming, is clearly valued by our audiences, advertisers and distribution partners,“ Murdoch said. “The consistent financial delivery from this strategy supports our investments in innovation which are driving momentum in our digital portfolio, led by Tub. Our balanced capital allocation approach, fortified by our strong balance sheet, underpins our ability to drive long-term value creation for our shareholders.”

Fox said it would be using AdRise as the tech platform for its newly launched OneFox audience network.

AdRise was acquired by Fox as part of its $440 million purchase of Tubi in 2020. AdRise processes both linear and CTV inventory across Fox Entertainment, Fox Sports, Fox News Media and Tubi.

“AdRise has a reputation as a first mover in CTV advertising and has pioneered and underpinned the growth of our Tubi streaming business from the very beginning. We’re now extending the team and technology platform to power our audience network and video inventory across all of Fox, unlocking unique value for our agency and advertising partners,” said Paul Cheesbrough, CEO of Tubi Media Group.

Fox announcement comes in the weeks leading up to an upfront in which a larger share of ad dollars will go to streaming as traditional TV viewership wanes. Media companies are investing heavily to be able to sell and management more types of digital inventory to their regular upfront customers.

“Our approach with AdRise breaks down the walls between media ecosystems, merging the scale of linear and the targeting of streaming into one centralized system,” said Jeff Collins, president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships for Fox. “We’ve increased our focus and investment in ad tech to develop the tools brands need for today’s evolving environment. In doing so, we’re ensuring that transacting with the Fox Portfolio — no matter the mix of platforms — is easy, frictionless and, most importantly, effective.”

Former Apple and Hulu media and technology executive Pete Distad has been named CEO of the new sports-themed joint streaming venture being launched by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery. 

Distad worked at Apple from 2013 - 2023, last serving as head of the tech titan's sports video operations. Prior to that, he served on the launch team at Hulu. Distad will assume oversight of all aspects of the joint venture, including overall strategy, distribution, marketing and sales.

He was reported several weeks ago to be a favorite for the top job at the so-called "Spulu," the still officially unnamed venture that will see Disney, Fox and WBD bundle their linear sports channels in a vMVPD-like bundle. 

Also read: Former Apple and Hulu Exec Pete Distad Reportedly Tops the Short List to Lead the Big Disney-Fox-WBD Sports Streaming Venture

“This is an incredible opportunity to build and grow a differentiated product that will serve passionate sports fans in the U.S. outside of the traditional pay TV bundle,” Distad said, in a statement. “I’m excited to be able to pull together the industry-leading sports content portfolios from these three companies to deliver a new best-in-class service.”

Disney/ESPN, Fox and WBD added the following joint statement: “Pete is an accomplished innovator and leader who has extensive experience with launching and growing new video services. We are confident he and his team will build an extremely compelling, fan-focused product for our target market.”

Distad worked at Apple from 2013-2023, where he was responsible for the business, operations and global distribution for video, sports and Apple TV Plus. While there, he launched the new Apple TV in 2015, and later led teams that launched the Apple TV app, Apple TV Plus, and MLS Season Pass. He originally joined the company to lead product marketing for the Apple TV hardware product.

Working at Hulu from 2007 - 2013, Distad was part of the original Hulu launch team, overseeing customer acquisition and retention, distribution and marketing as senior VP of marketing and distribution.

He'll face a range of challenges at Spulu. Among them: pay TV operators who are upset that they've been thwarted for years by the JV's principals in their own efforts to carve out consumer-friendly, genre-themed skinny programming bundles; and antitrust concerns from the U.S. Justice Dept. 

Fox has shared its summer schedule, which includes Don’t Forget the Lyrics! returning May 16, Beat Shazam back on May 28 and Name That Tune starting up June 3. Jamie Foxx is back as Beat Shazam host after missing last season due to illness. 

I Can See Your Voice, hosted by Ken Jeong, also debuts May 16, leading into Don’t Forget the Lyrics! The judging panel on I Can See Your Voice includes Jeong, Cheryl Hines and Adrienne Bailon-Hougton. 

Niecy Nash hosts Don’t Forget the Lyrics. 

Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars starts a new season May 22, with Lisa Vanderpump’s team of culinary standouts facing off against Ramsay’s. The season two premiere follows the season finale of The Masked Singer. 

Beat Shazam starts season seven May 28. Foxx is also an executive producer. His daughter Corinne is co-host and deejay. 

After Beat Shazam is The Quiz with Balls. Jay Pharoah hosts the show, a mix of quiz show and physical competition. Two families compete for $100,000, standing on a platform high above a pool, and hoping they are not struck by a giant ball following a wrong answer, and knocked into the pool. 

Season 14 of MasterChef: Generations is on May 29. Gordon Ramsay, Aaron Sanchez and Joe Bastianich are on that one. 

Name That Tune returns June 3. Jane Krakowski hosts and Randy Jackson is the band leader. 

Jamie Foxx returns as host of game show Beat Shazam, which starts season seven on Fox May 28. Foxx is an executive producer and his daughter Corinne Foxx is co-host and deejay. 

Nick Cannon was a guest host in season six after Foxx was hospitalized. 

“Jamie and Corinne are the heart and soul of Beat Shazam,” Allison Wallach, Fox Entertainment’s president of unscripted programming, said. “As our undeniably dynamic father-daughter hosting team, they bring a relationship like no other to a show like no other, and it’s wonderful having them back on set this season.”

Beat Shazam pits teams of two against the clock and each other, as they attempt to identify the biggest hit songs of all time. In the end, the team with the most money goes against song identification app Shazam for the chance to win $1 million. 

Beat Shazam was created by Jeff Apploff and Wes Kauble, and is produced by Apploff Entertainment, MGM Alternative Television and BiggerStage in association with Shazam. Apploff, Mark Burnett, Barry Poznick, Lauren Zalaznick, Pat Kiely, Sean O’Riordan and Jamie Foxx are executive producers.

Tubi, Fox’s ad supported streaming service, named veteran ad sales executive Jeff Lucas as chief revenue officer.

Lucas replaces Mark Rotblat, who had been CRO since 2018.

Rotblat will be focusing on AdRise, another unit in Fox's Tubi Media Group, a Tubi spokesperson said. AdRise is a large-scale video advertising network that incorporates all of Fox’s video inventory from Tubi, Fox Sports, Fox Entertainment, Fox News Media and Fox Television Stations.

The move is the latest in a series of changes at Tubi, where Anjali Sud was named CEO last year and at Fox, where Jeff Collins was named president of ad sales.

Lucas will report to Collins. 

Most recently, Lucas was chief revenue officer for Firework, a video commerce platform. Before that he was head of North American sales & global client solutions at Verizon Media. Earlier in his career, he was head of ad sales for Viacom and NBC Cable.

“The future of entertainment will be shaped by an increasing convergence of Hollywood, Silicon Valley and Madison Avenue,” Sud said. “As advertisers struggle to reach cord-cutters and cord-nevers on traditional TV, Tubi is uniquely positioned to reach this next generation of audiences. Jeff brings industry-leading experience and a stellar track record that bridges traditional media with digital, and we’re thrilled to be adding him to our leadership bench.” 

At Tubi, Collins will be responsible for leveraging Tubi’s scale and unique incremental audience to drive monetization.

“The streaming landscape is facing secular trends that are redefining entertainment as we know it, and Tubi’s 100% free, ad-supported entertainment experience makes audiences feel seen while giving advertisers the ability to maximize reach and ROI,” Lucas said. “I’m looking forward to diving in with the team to help accelerate growth during such a pivotal time for the industry and the business.” 

Lisa Vanderpump is on board for season two of Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars on Fox. Ramsay and Vanderpump will face off as each selects food and beverage entrepreneurs to join their teams. The season debuts May 22. 

“Pitting Gordon against Lisa creates a new layer of intensity for the Food Stars competition,” Allison Wallach, Fox Entertainment president of unscripted programming, said. “Matching these brilliant and uncompromising industry titans who know what they want and how to get it, will give both our contestants and viewers a unique window into how industry heavyweights strategize, lead, win and entertain.”

From London, Vanderpump and husband Ken Todd have been in the restaurant and nightclub industry for decades. Her shows include Vanderpump Rules on Bravo, Overserved With Lisa Vanderpump on E! and Vanderpump Dogs on Peacock. 

“Gordon is quite literally larger than life, an iconic figure and a dear friend,” said Vanderpump. “Setting that aside, we’re both tenacious, tireless, competitive and demanding of ourselves and others, so while I salute the man and his many successes and defer to his mastery in the kitchen, I will never defer to him on this show. Game on, Gordon!”

Food Stars will see the entrepreneurs pitch themselves and their products, services or business ideas to Ramsay and Vanderpump, who will then choose contestants to build their teams. The teams are then put through “Business Bootcamp.”

“Lisa is a tough, shrewd restaurateur and TV star,” said Ramsay. “She is a real force in business and a true friend. However, make no mistake, the competition will be fierce between us!”

Ramsay’s Fox shows also include Next Level Chef, Hell’s Kitchen, MasterChef, MasterChef Junior and Kitchen Nightmares.

Gordon Ramsay’s Food Stars is produced by Studio Ramsay Global. Ramsay is an executive producer, and Deborah Sargeant is executive producer and showrunner.

After nearly overshadowing the Kansas City Chiefs and San Francisco 49ers during Super Bowl week, the joint venture newly kicked off by The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and rivals Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery isn’t as sure a thing as Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes, who again emerged as the big game’s most valuable player.

Investors and observers were split on the joint venture. Some saw the companies as three wise men, creating their own virtual multichannel video distributor (vMVPD) to carry a skinny bundle of most of TV’s most-watched channels, including ESPN, ABC, Fox and TNT. Others thought the venture was formed by three blind mice who failed to see how their leviathan would open the floodgates to accelerated cord-cutting by letting sports escape the historically lucrative pay TV business.

Also Read: Sports Executive of the Year: Game on, Says Luis Silberwasser, TNT Sports Chief

The combination will encourage frustrated sports fans who have cut the cord to come into (or back into) the fast-eroding pay TV ecosystem, which for years has generated big profit margins for programmers, fans of the deal argued. And the JV will pay its founders top rates for their sports programming.

The optimism was met with concerns on Wall Street and elsewhere that the venture would encourage continued cord-cutting, making it easier for consumers to choose a skinnier bundle of programming for about $50 a month and stop subscribing to still-lucrative channels like CNN, Fox News, Disney Channel, HGTV and FX.

The price the venture would charge distributors was just one of the still unanswered questions about the still-unnamed business.

Who will run it? Will other partners be added? Will traditional distributors be able to offer the new bundle to their subscribers? Will affiliates be cut in?

During earnings calls the week the venture was announced, Disney CEO Bob Iger and Fox executive chairman and CEO Lachlan Murdoch both downplayed the risk of accelerating cord-cutting and further damaging their news and entertainment cable channels.

“While there might be some de minimis economic impact on us for us it’s very low-risk,” said Iger, who responded to pressure from activist investors by announcing that ESPN would go direct-to-consumer next year and that Taylor Swift’s concert film will be on Disney Plus next month.

Of the 125 million U.S. TV households, about half, or 60 million, are not in the traditional bundled ecosystem.

“We would not be launching this product if we thought it was going to significantly affect our affiliate partners,” Murdoch said, adding, “The opportunity is huge.” 

Wariness on Wall Street

Wall Street was skeptical. “Fox said they’re confident that the sports streaming JV with Disney and WBD won’t disrupt the traditional pay TV ecosystem,” Wells Fargo analyst Steven Cahall said. “We are not yet convinced and think it’s a gamble to give bundle subs additional options. ”

The news wasn’t great for companies impacted by the venture.

Fubo, the money-losing sports-oriented streaming service, saw its stock price fall about 20%.“We’re not surprised more sports streaming options are becoming available,” Fubo said, “We believe our robust programming and quality product experience cannot be duplicated by what is likely to emerge from this joint venture.” 

Fubo added that “we have already seen that a consortium born of historical competitors is a difficult undertaking, and streaming joint ventures rarely work.”

Paramount Global, whose rights holdings include the NFL, a piece of the men’s NCAA basketball tournament and college football, downplayed the strategy behind the sports venture.

“What we focus on is a broad strategy,” Paramount CEO Bob Bakish told CNBC. “We’ve looked at sports-only plays, including in digital, both on a standalone basis and with partners, but we continue to believe broad is better.”

More Reach for Stations

Stations, which are increasingly adding local sports to their lineup, could also be impacted but preferred to focus on the bright spots, at least in public. 

The venture “could be a significant opportunity to expand the pay TV ecosystem,” Gray Television said in a statement. “Gray welcomes any venture that expands the reach of local broadcasting stations, which in turn supports the ability of local stations to maintain trusted local news operations that benefit everyone.”

Said E.W. Scripps CEO Adam Symson, “Affiliates are going to be compensated for being carried along.” 

“People don’t want to go to a buffet where half the steam trays are missing,” Symson added. “It calls into question the value of the consumer proposition. If you’re a sports nut today and you need access to all the live telecasts of your favorite sports, you’re best off maintaining the pay TV bundle as it is.” 

Fubo said it has filed an antitrust lawsuit against The Walt Disney Co., Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery claiming that the sports streaming venture they plan is stealing Fubo’s playbook.

Fubo is seeking to enjoin the joint venture or, require the defendants to offer economic parity of licensing terms and pay substantial damages.

The Disney-Fox-WBD venture would stream linear channels that carry sports programming for about $50 a month, competing with Fubo for cord-cutting sports fans.

The new service will hurt competition and inflate prices for viewers, Fubo claims.

Fubo stock plunged after the joint venture was announced.

Fubo alleges that the sports content rights holders have made it difficult to launch a sports streaming service.

“For decades, defendants have leveraged their iron grip on sports content to extract billions of dollars in supra-competitive profits” by engaging in practices causing consumers to pay more for highly popular sports content and resulting in significant damages to both Fubo and its customers,” Fubo said in its complaint.

Fubo alleges that the defendants controlled content through unfair bundling — making distributors include non-sports channels, like Disney Channel or Fox News Channel, in their offerings — and other tactics.

Fubo also charges that Fox, WBD and Disney charge Fubo licensing rates that are 30% to 50% higher than they charge other distributors.

Fubo said it believes it has incurred billions of dollars in damages as a result of the defendants’ actions. 

“Each of these companies has consistently engaged in anti-competitive practices that aim to monopolize the market, stifle any form of competition, create higher pricing for subscribers and cheat consumers from deserved choice,“ Fubo co-founder and CEO David Gandler said. “By joining together to exclusively reserve the rights to distribute a specialized live sports package, we believe these corporations are erecting insurmountable barriers that will effectively block any new competitors from entering the market. 

“This strategy ensures that consumers desiring a dedicated sports channel lineup are left with no alternative but to subscribe to the defendants’ joint venture,” Gandler said.

 Fox said that it will hold an upfront event for advertisers and media buyers on Monday May 13.

Fox will be returning to the Hammerstein Ballroom at the Manhattan Center for the presentation.

Jeff Collins, the new Fox president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships will be the host of the event, which will highlight the company’s sports, entertainment, news and streaming properties.

The company said it will unveil new content and new data- and tech-enhanced ad capabilities.

“At Fox, our unrivaled, world-class content connects with communities nationwide like no other,” said Collins. “We are excited to return to upfront week, the culmination of months of bespoke client engagements focused on developing custom solutions for our valued partners across our industry-leading content, data and technology.”

Leading up to its upfront event, Fox has been holding small, customized client meetings featuring company executives and network talent. It has also been conducting a data and technology roadshow where it is introducing a cross-platform planning and measurement tool. 

Most other TV companies have unveiled their upfront plans. Many are reprising what they did last year, with sizable events in well-known venues.

A few, led by Paramount Global, are holding smaller, private meetings with advertisers.

Former Apple and Hulu executive Pete Distad is the "top candidate" to lead the new joint streaming venture announced last week by Disney, Fox and Warner Bros. Discovery, according to digital newsletter platform Puck.

The Wall Street Journal, meanwhile reported that Distad, who ran video and sports businesses at Apple before departing last May, is "among the top candidates" for the job. 

In addition to serving on the launch team for Apple TV Plus, while also overseeing relationships for Apple with Major League Soccer and Major League Baseball, Distad was around at as a marketing and distribution executive at Hulu when NBC, Fox and Disney hoisted Hulu in 2007. 

Also read: Why ‘Re-Bundling Has To Happen’: Breaking Down the New ESPN, TNT Sports and Fox Sports Streaming JV

Last week, Disney, Fox and WBD announced that they are going sell a joint live-streamed bundled of their pay TV sports channels. Leadership or the project is still unannounced, as is a price, launch date and name. 

None of the media companies involved in the joint venture are confirming Distad's status at this point. A consultant close to the companies only told us that Distad is only "director level" in terms of stature. 

Listing his own Apple title as "Sr. Director, Video/Sports/TV+ Business, Operations, and Distribution," Distad does, however, seem to have the diversity on his resume that the JV partners are looking for: marketing, engineering, relationship-building, etc, etc.

And as the masked consultant we spoke to suggested, none of the three CEOs who made this joint venture "want a super independent person in that role."

The new sports venture being launched by Fox, ESPN and Warner Bros Discovery isn’t in the market for additional partners, according to Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch.

Speaking on Fox Corp.’s fiscal second-quarter earnings call Wednesday, Murdoch said Fox remains supportive of its traditional distributors and the pay TV ecosystem and that the new venture will primarily target cord-nevers.

Adding new partners is “not something we’re considering at this stage,” Murdoch said. “We think that the 14 linear networks that this service offers gives people a tremendous amount of content.”

Also Read: Why ‘Re-Bundling Has to Happen’: Breaking Down the New ESPN, TNT Sports and Fox Sports Streaming JV

The current bundle would not include sports programming on networks owned by Comcast NBCUniversal, such as NBC, or Paramount Global, which includes CBS. 

Fox CFO Steve Tomsic said it was early to forecast how much Fox would have to contribute to cover operating and marketing costs. “As we look at it, it will be accretive to us from a net-net perspective when you take into account affiliate fees that we’ll collect as revenue,” he said. 

Murdoch said that Fox does not believe the new sports bundle will accelerate cord-cutting.

“We would not be launching this product if we thought it was going to significantly affect our affiliate partners,” Murdoch said.  “I think we’re the biggest supporters of the traditional pay TV bundle. We think there’s tremendous value in the pay TV bundle for the consumer who wants to get it all at an affordable price.”

Murdoch said the new sports bundle would be targeted at “cord nevers” and other sports fans currently not taking a pay TV bundle.

Of the 125 million U.S. TV households, about half, or 60 million, are not in the traditional bundled ecosystem.

“So the opportunity is huge,” he said.

Murdoch added that the risk of the new sports bundle would cause more people to cut the cable cord, hurting assets like Fox News was very low.

“That channel and that brand really drives tremendous viewership and audience engagement for [distributors] and we think it will continue to do so within the traditional pay television bundle,” he said.

Analyst Steven Cahall of Wells Fargo was skeptical the joint venture wouldn't hurt network like Fox News Channel.

"Fox said they're confident that the sports streaming JV with Disney and WBD won't disrupt the traditional pay TV ecosystem. We are not yet convinced and think it's a gamble to give bundle subs additional options," Cahall said. "We expect the sports streaming JV to improve the reach and value of Fox's sports business through higher ARPU and more overall subscribers. We think this could come at the expense of Fox News affiliate revenue."

Despite forming a joint venture with two rivals, Murdoch said Fox will still be competing for sports rights, sports viewers and sports advertising dollars.

“We will be aggressively competing in the sports market,” he said. “Sports remains a competitive business in which we currently thrive and we don’t see any difference to that.”

Murdoch said Fox has been monitoring the streaming space for several years and the partners have been developing the new venture for months. 

“We felt now was the right time to launch a product into a new market. It’s a new market where there’s no product serving the sports fans that are not within the cable TV bundle,“ he said. “It accesses for us a whole new network and really drives a tremendous amount of new reach that we weren’t servicing before.”

Fox reported lower fiscal second-quarter earnings as ad revenues fell at its cable and television businesses.

Net income dropped to $109 million, or 23 cents a share, compared to $313 million, or 58 cents a share, a year ago. The result included a change in the value of the company’s investments.

Adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) fell to $350 million from $531 million.  

Also Read: TV Giants Team Up for Sports Comeback vs. Streamers

Revenue fell 8% to $4.23 billion. The company had lower programming and production costs, partly because it how fewer hours of original scripted programming during the strikes by the writers and actors unions.

Also Read: New Sports Venture Not Open To Additional Partners: Lachlan Murdoch

Advertising revenues plunged 20% to $2 billion. The company said the drop was because of a comparison to last year, when it benefited from the World Cup and political spending. The company also saw elevated supply in the direct response market, lower ratings and higher preemptions at Fox News Media.

Affiliate fee revenues rose 4% to $1.8 billion, with a 10% increase in Fox’s television segment.

The results were better than Wall Street expectations.

Adjusted EBITDA at the company’s cable network programming segment rose 60% to $564 million. The company said costs fell because of the absence of the World Cup and lower legal costs at Fox News Media, which a year ago was contesting a lawsuit from voting machine maker Dominion Voting Systems. Fox later paid $787.5 million to settle the suit.

Cable programming revenues rose 2% to $1.66 billion. Advertising revenue fell to $348 million from $451 million a year ago. Affiliate-fee revenue rose 2% to $1 billion.

Fox’s television segment had a $138 million loss in EBITDA, compared to positive earnings of $256 million a year ago.

Television revenues dropped to $2.54 billion from $2.93 billion. Ad revenue fell to $1.65 billion from $2.1 billion, as lower ad political ad spending at Fox’s stations was offset by growth at Tubi.

Tubi had a 62% increase in total viewing time and a 10% gain in advertising revenue. The streamer had 78 million monthly active users and nearly 2.5 billion streaming hours in the quarter. 

Affiliate revenues rose 10% to $756 million.

“At the halfway point in our fiscal year, our results demonstrate the strength and durability of our core brands and their ability to deliver solid audiences across our portfolio,” CEO Lachlan Murdoch said.

“Fox Sports continues to benefit from the power of live sports programming and Fox News has maintained its leadership in cable news, while Tubi has been resilient in an increasingly competitive market,” Murdoch said. “Combining this steadfast portfolio of assets with a best-in-class balance sheet underpins our ability to deliver value for our shareholders.” 

Some of the biggest companies in the television sports business — Fox, The Walt Disney Co.’s ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery — are teaming up to create a jointly owned platform that would stream their sports assets and make it easier for fans to find the games they want to watch.

The deal comes at a time when broadcast and cable companies are worried about not being able to afford sports, which draw the biggest ratings on TV. 

Streaming companies are grabbing rights to more and more sports and live events, from Thursday Night Football on Prime Video to WWE Monday Night Raw on Netflix.

By subscribing to the new standalone app under development, sports fans would have access to the linear sports networks including ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNU, SECN, ACCN, ESPNews ABC, Fox, FS1, FS2, BTN, TNT, TBS, truTV, as well as ESPN Plus.

The app will carry content from the NFL, NBA, WNBA, MLB, NHL, NASCAR, major college sports, UFC, the PGA Tour, Grand Slam tennis, the FIFA World Cup and cycling.

The partners are hoping to get the new app up and running by the fall, in time for football season.

The venture will operate like a virtual multichannel video programming distributor (vMPVD) and pay sub fees for the networks it carries.

That means that while the partners share in the venture’s profits and losses, each media company will generate revenues  based on the sub fees of the networks included in the new skinny sports bundle.

That means that Disney–with ESPN and ABC in the mix–will probably generate more revenue than WBD, whose CNN and HBO won’t be in the package, or Fox, which won’t be getting paid for Fox News Channel.

Because Fox, Disney and WBD are essentially selling existing channels to a new distributor, their deals with the sports leagues did not need to be renegotiated.

In the future each of the partners will continue to negotiate sports rights for their own networks. They do not plan to combine resources to bid for increasingly expensive sports rights, according to a source familiar with the deal.

The companies did not disclose a price point for the service, but some sources said it is expected to be in the $50 a month ballpark–less than other MVPDs with more entertainment programming.

With the new venture carrying the ABC and Fox broadcasting networks, its unclear how local programming will be addressed.

“The launch of this new streaming sports service is a significant moment for Disney and ESPN, a major win for sports fans, and an important step forward for the media business,” Disney CEO Bob Iger said. “This means the full suite of ESPN channels will be available to consumers alongside the sports programming of other industry leaders as part of a differentiated sports-centric service. I’m grateful to Jimmy Pitaro and the team at ESPN, who are at the forefront of innovating on behalf of consumers to create new offerings with more choice and greater value.”

Disney has been trying to figure out the streaming future of ESPN and has been talking about ESPN going direct-to-consumer at some point in the near future. The DTC version of ESPN will give subscribers access to ESPN’s linear channels in an even skinnier bundle. It is also likely to have personalization, betting and fantasy features that will distinguish it from both ESPN Plus and the new sports joint venture.

“We’re pumped to bring the Fox Sports portfolio to this new and exciting platform,” Fox Corp. CEO Lachlan Murdoch said. “We believe the service will provide passionate fans outside of the traditional bundle an array of amazing sports content all in one place.”

Added WBD CEO David Zaslav: “At Warner Bros Discovery, our ambition is always to connect our leading content and brands with as many viewers as possible, and this exciting joint venture and the unparalleled combination of marquee sports rights and access to the greatest sporting events in the world allows us to do just that. This new sports service exemplifies our ability as an industry to drive innovation and provide consumers with more choice, enjoyment and value and we’re thrilled to deliver it to sports fans.”

The new venture would be one-third owned by Fox, ESPN and Warner Bros. Discovery. It will be run by an independent management team reporting to a board that will have equal representation from its owners.

According to someone familiar with the situation, Comcast NBCUniversal and Paramount Global, which also hold substantial sports rights, were not asked to participate in the discussions that led to the joint venture. It is unclear if they would be able join if that was something they wanted.

A list of sports properties that could be offered by the new joint venture: 

Kanye West gets his close-up when TMZ Investigates: Kanye West: Unhinged vut Unstoppable airs on Fox Monday, February 5. It is on Hulu February 6. 

The special examines “how the legacy of one of the most influential hip-hop artists of all time has been impacted by his hateful remarks and public outbursts,” according to TMZ. 

Unhinged But Unstoppable hears from Bill Maher, The Game, Angela Yee, Touré and Josh Flagg, among others. West is not interviewed in the special, which goes for an hour. 

A rapper and entrepreneur, Kanye has been in the news for years, including his hip-hop accomplishments, marriage to, and divorce from, Kim Kardashian, presidential campaigns and anti-Semitic statements. 

TMZ Investigates is executive-produced by Harvey Levin, Ryan Regan, Don Nash, Charles Latibeaudiere and Jess Fusco. 

Previous TMZ Investigates specials have looked at Michael Jackson, Richard Simmons and Britney Spears, among others. 

Former News Corp. executive and current Fox critic Preston Padden has filed a copy of a New York state court ruling to buttress the challenge to Fox Corp.'s ownership of WTXF Philadelphia. Padden, a longtime executive working for Fox chairman emeritus Rupert Murdoch, called for designating the license renewal for hearing before an administrative law judge, given the court's ruling.

Manhattan State Supreme Court Justice David Cohen on Wednesday (January 24) refused Fox's petition that the court dismiss an amended complaint in voting machine company Smartmatic USA’s lawsuit against the company and Fox News Channel on-air figures Lou Dobbs, Maria Bartiromo and Jeanine Pirro, as well as Rudy Giuliani and Sidney Powell, surrogates for former President Donald Trump. Smartmatic accused Fox of spreading misinformation about its equipment and its role in the 2020 election.

Also Read: Ervin Duggan, Bill Kristol Back WTXF License Challenge

The court said the amended complaint was accepted because it sufficiently supported allegations that Fox employees “acted with malice by purposely and deliberating publishing knowingly false stories about plaintiffs [Smartmatic voting machines] in order to benefit Corp.’s financial interests.”

The Media & Democracy Project, citing Fox’s settlement of the Dominion Voting Systems lawsuit over similar election misinformation, last year challenged the renewal of WTXF at the Federal Communications Commission — and, by extension, the company’s character qualifications for holding any TV station licenses at all.

Given the conduct of Fox News employees surrounding false claims about voting machine irregularities, it said Fox lacked the character to hold that license — and, by extension, all of its TV station licenses.

Losing those licenses would be a huge financial hit. By its own count, Fox owns 29 full-power TV stations, including in 14 of the top 15 biggest markets, and owns duopolies — two stations — in each of the top three markets in the country, New York, Los Angeles and Chicago.

In filing a copy of that court decision with the FCC, Padden pointed out that the malice allegation in the court decision was the same one Media & Democracy was making at the agency in its license-renewal challenge and argued for the regulator “at the very least” designating the license for hearing.

But there were two decisions from the court this week, Fox pointed out in an email. The court also dismissed a petition to dismiss Fox Corp's counterclaim. 

That counterclaim is that plaintiff's request for $2.7 billion in damages from Fox was “calculated to chill defendants’ free speech rights” because the figure bore no relation to the company’s “actual worth and possible future profits.”

“Plaintiffs do not establish that there has already been a binding determination that their claims [against News Corp.] have a substantial basis in fact,” the court said, adding that News Corp.’s claims that the damages are “so extenuated from their actual lost profits that they were pleaded and/or sought in order to chill defendants’ free speech rights” has yet to be adjudicated in court.

“We will be ready to defend this case surrounding extremely newsworthy events when it goes to trial, likely in 2025,“ Fox said in a statement. “As a report prepared by our financial expert shows, Smartmatic’s damages claims are implausible, disconnected from reality, and on their face intended to chill First Amendment freedoms.”

Nielsen said that Fox has renewed its contract for audience measurement for multiple years.

The new agreement covers Fox’s broadcast and cable networks, Fox has also signed up for Nielsen One Ads.

Fox will continue to license Nielsen’s sports-focused planning and audience tools and Nielsen continues to be a measurement provider for Tubi, Fox’s streaming platform.

Also Read: Nexstar Picks Comscore for Local, National, Cross-Platform Audience Measurement

The renewal comes as Nielsen faces challenges from measurement companies using big data from millions of set-top boxes and smart TVs to estimate audiences.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“Fox is at the forefront of providing millions of viewers valuable news, sports and entertainment content, and we value our long-standing relationship with FOX,” said Amilcar Perez, Chief Revenue Officer at Nielsen. “As we continue to focus on innovating our measurement to meet our clients’ needs, we are proud that clients like FOX choose Nielsen to provide the audience measurement data across digital and linear properties it needs to bring value to its advertiser partners.”

Jeff Collins, head of ad sales for Fox News Media, has been named president of advertising sales, marketing and brand partnerships for all of Fox Corp.

Collins will replace Marianne Gambelli, who is retiring and is set to be inducted into the B+C Hall of Fame this September.

“I want to thank Marianne for her many contributions to Fox and congratulate her on a phenomenal career,” Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch said. “Marianne has contributed immensely to the successful execution of our strategies, and it has been a great pleasure of mine to work alongside her. Jeff has established himself as a leader and an innovator and we are confident that he will continue to build value for our advertising partners across all of our platforms.”

Collins joined Fox in 2019 from Viant Technology, where he was chief revenue officer. Before Viant, Collins spent 18 years at Turner Broadcasting System.

“I look forward to leading the Ad Sales team as we continue to work with our valued partners to provide unique and compelling connections with the passionate audiences only Fox can offer,” Collins said.

Gambelli was with Horizon Media before joining Fox as head of sales for Fox News Media. She assumed her larger role across Fox brands in 2019. Earlier, she had been with NBCUniversal.

“It has been an honor to lead this talented team during such a transformative period in our industry,” Gambelli said. “I know they are well-positioned under Jeff’s leadership to continue to set the standard for excellence for delivering results for our advertising partners.”

Sinclair said it reached an agreement to renew all of its Fox affiliations.

The new deal covers stations in 41 markets, serving 19 million TV households.

“We are pleased to reach this comprehensive renewal with Fox, inclusive of the early renewal of 17 markets,” said Will Bell, senior VP, head of distribution and network relations at Sinclair.

Also Read: Game On: Sinclair, Diamond Sports, Amazon in Deal To Keep Regional Sports Networks in Business

“Premiere sports, such as the NFL, including the Super Bowl in February of 2025, Baseball Night in America, the World Series and college football and basketball, have never been more important, and we are pleased to be able to continue to pair Fox’s premiere sports and entertainment programming, which remain exclusive to broadcast, with our best-in-class local news and syndicated programming for years to come,” Bell said.

Financial terms were not disclosed.

“We are pleased to extend our partnership with Sinclair, and we are delighted these stations will continue to be the top destination in these 41 markets for our shared viewers to access all of Fox’s leading Entertainment and Sports content,” David Espinosa, president of distribution for Fox Corp., said.

Extra has teamed up with Fox’s KTTV Los Angeles to create a pre-Emmy special that will air on KTTV ahead of the 75th annual Primetime Emmy Awards on Monday. 

The special, titled Good Day LA Red Carpet Extra, will be hosted by Good Day LA host and Extra senior correspondent Melvin Robert and Good Day LA host and former Extra correspondent Jennifer Lahmers. The special will feature clips pulled from Extra’s vast vault of prior Emmy moments, interviews that Robert and Lahmers have previously done with some of the nominees, and some backstage moments from last weekend’s Golden Globes. 

Good Day LA Red Carpet Extra will air at 4:30 p.m. PT, leading into the Emmys at 5 p.m. Extra will air at 4 p.m. on KTTV on Monday and will have full Emmy coverage during the show on Tuesday. 

“We have covered our fair share of award shows in 30 seasons, so it is great to be able to collaborate on an Emmy Special with Fox 11,” Extra executive producers Theresa Coffino and Jeremy Spiegel said. “Good Day LA Red Carpet Extra exemplifies the synergy that Extra continues to have with their affiliate partners.”

Access entertainment magazine Extra is produced and distributed by Warner Bros. Billy Bush hosts.

The 75th Emmy Awards are airing Monday, January 15, on Fox and will be emceed by Anthony Anderson. The show was moved to January from September due to the writers and actors strikes. Up for awards are such shows as HBO’s Succession, The Last of Us and Barry; FX’s The Bear; Netflix’s The Crown and Beef, and many more. 

Animated show Grimsburg debuts on Fox Sunday, January 7, following an NFL doubleheader. The show, about a detective who returns to his hometown to solve a couple of mysteries that have always eluded him, including his ex-wife and son, has some big names attached. Jon Hamm voices Detective Martin Flute and is an executive producer, and Gail Berman, former president of Fox Entertainment and Paramount Pictures, is an exec producer too. 

Berman shared how the Grimsburg script landed on her desk, and grabbed her in a way a script had not since her days at Fox back in the 2000s. She mentioned Malcolm in the Middle as the last show script to land with that kind of thud. “It was an unusual situation … where something came across the desk that was just kind of undeniable,” she said, “And this was like that.”

Berman sees Grimsburg as “a take on Nordic murder mysteries,” such as The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. Grimsburg is way more tongue in cheek, but shares a similar “offbeat tone” as the Nordic books and films, Berman said. 

“Grimsburg is a place where a lot of bad stuff happens, but it’s also people finding themselves in the office, finding moments where they can come together,” she said. “It has a family notion to it, as most animated shows do. It’s also an office comedy as well as a personal comedy. Marvin is trying to not only get his badge and his job back, he’s also trying to get his family back.”

Hamm, who of course played Don Draper on Mad Men, also plays a law-enforcement officer on the new season of FX series Fargo. He told B+C the two characters don’t have much in common other than their line of work. “I wouldn’t draw too many parallels between my animated character and [his Sheriff Tillman character on Fargo],” he said. 

A review in The Wall Street Journal called Grimsburg dark and peculiar — “a cartoon that is definitely off-limits to the Cocomelon set, or even Bluey fans, and which might go so far as to put Simpsons devotees on edge, although the violence is no worse than The Itchy & Scratchy Show, if Quentin Tarantino were directing. Casual mayhem aside, there is so much going on — so many visual gags, puns, obscure pop-cultural citations and pure weirdness for weirdness’s sake — that a viewer might not absorb it all until he or she watches it twice. Which I found myself happy to do.”

Fox has ordered a second season of the show. Catlan McClelland and Matthew Schlissel created Grimsburg and co-executive produce alongside showrunner Chadd Gindin. Hamm executive produces along with Berman and Hend Baghdady of The Jackal Group, and Connie Tavel.

After its special preview January 7, Grimsburg moves into its regular time period Sunday, February 18.

Berman called Grimsburg “really fresh.”

“I don’t think you’ve seen anything like this in the animated space at all–it’s very contemporary,” she said. “It’s filled with a lot of interesting characters with interesting problems.”

Besides being the series name, Grimsburg is the place that Detective Flute returns to to solve some age-old personal mysteries. “It’s a place far, far away,” said Berman, “where a lot of very unsavory things happen, very unpleasant things happen.”

Football action, led by the College Football Playoff, dominates the schedule of live sports events on TV over the New Year’s holiday weekend.

ESPN on New Year’s Day will air the College Football Playoff semifinal games, including top-ranked Michigan facing No. 4 Alabama in the Rose Bowl and second-ranked Washington battling No. 3 Texas in the Sugar Bowl. Also on January 1, ESPN will televise the Fiesta Bowl between No. 23 Liberty and No. 8 Oregon. 

On Saturday, ESPN will televise the Cotton Bowl (No. 9 Missouri-No. 7 Ohio State), the Peach Bowl (No. 11 Ole Miss-No. 10 Penn State), and the Orange Bowl (No. 6 Georgia-No. 5 Florida State). 

Week 17 of the NFL schedule will feature a Saturday ABC and ESPN simulcast of the Dallas Cowboys-Detroit Lions game. On Sunday afternoon, CBS and Fox will televise regional NFL game coverage, while NBC’s Sunday Night Football matchup will feature the Green Bay Packers and Minnesota Vikings. 

On the basketball court, top-ranked college basketball schools in action on Saturday include second-ranked Kansas against Wichita State on ESPN2 and third-ranked Houston against Pennsylvania on ESPN Plus. On Sunday, fourth-ranked Arizona faces Stanford. On the women’s side, Saturday’s schedule features top-ranked South Carolina meeting East Carolina on ESPN2, second-ranked UCLA playing sixth-ranked USC on the Pac12 Network, fourth-ranked Iowa meeting Minnesota on BTN, and fifth-ranked Texas battling No.10 Baylor on Fox. On Sunday, third-ranked NC State faces Virginia on ACCN. 

On the soccer field, USA Network, Peacock and NBC will combine to feature nine live Premier League games over the three-day holiday weekend.

A Christmas Day lineup of NBA and NFL games highlights a holiday weekend schedule of live TV sports events.  

Christmas Day will feature three NFL games, beginning with CBS and Nickelodeon’s simulcast of the Las Vegas Raiders-Kansas City Chiefs game, followed by Fox’s coverage of the New York Giants-Philadelphia Eagles contest and ABC’s primetime telecast of the Baltimore Ravens-San Francisco 49ers game.

On the basketball court, the NBA has five games scheduled for December 25, including Milwaukee-New York Knicks (ESPN), Golden State-Denver (ABC), Boston-Los Angeles Lakers (ABC), Philadelphia 76’ers-Miami Heat (ESPN), and Dallas-Phoenix (ESPN).

The NFL also has a doubleheader matchup on Saturday featuring the Cincinnati-Pittsburgh (NBC) and Buffalo-Los Angeles Chargers (Peacock) games. On Sunday, Fox and CBS will air regional NFL coverage, while NFL Network will air a primetime AFC conference matchup between the New England Patriots and Denver Broncos. 

College football continues its bowl season Saturday with seven games across ABC and ESPN, while NBC, Peacock, and USA Network will feature six Premier League soccer games. 

Also on Saturday, DAZN will distribute a pay-per-view boxing card featuring former heavyweight champions Anthony Joshua and Deontay Wilder in separate bouts. The afternoon fight card will retail at $39.99.

Animated show Grimsburg premieres on Fox Sunday, January 7. Jon Hamm gives voice to Marvin Flute, a pot-bellied detective with a mustache. Flute has solved a lot of mysteries in his career, but can’t quite figure out who he truly is. He returns to Grimsburg to redeem himself in the eyes of his fellow detectives, his ex-wife and his son. The town has some secrets it would like to remain secret. 

Hamm — who, of course, played Don Draper on Mad Men — got on board with Grimsburg when executive producer Gail Berman reached out to his manager, Connie Tavel. Tavel and Berman are old friends, and Berman said
she’d never once pitched Tavel on a project.

 Until she read the Grimsburg script. 

“I was like Con, it’s really funny,” she said. “It’s so perfect for Jon. He will make this character shine.”

Hamm loved the script too, and signed up to voice the main character and executive produce. 

After its January preview, Grimsburg slides into its regular time slot Sunday, February 18. Fox has committed to a second season. 

“I’m really, really excited to be on [Fox’s] Sunday-night lineup,” Berman said. “I think it’s a perfect place for the show. I think the show deserves that kind of quality lineup around us.”

Berman was Fox president of entertainment from 2000 to 2005, then president of Paramount Pictures. She’s now chairman and CEO of The Jackal Group. 

Also in the Grimsburg cast are Erinn Hayes as Marvin’s wife Harmony, Rachel Dratch as his son Stan and Alan Tudyk as Dr. Rufis Pentos and Mr. Flesh. 

Catlan McClelland and Matthew Schlissel created the show. 

Hamm is also on the new season of FX drama Fargo, where he plays ill-tempered North Dakota sheriff Roy Tillman. “I wouldn’t draw too many parallels between my animated character and [Tillman],” he told B+C. “When people get a chance to see Grimsburg they’ll know what I’m talking about.”

Across her long career, Berman said there’s only been a few times when a script that landed on her desk truly blew her and her colleagues away. “I think the only other time I had that happen to me was Malcolm in the Middle, where something came across the desk that was just kind of undeniable,” she said. “This was like that.” 

BET Plus leads the list of networks and streaming services delivering holiday TV movie cheer to viewers during the 12 days before Christmas as programmers tie a bow around a robust lineup of original holiday programming that launched in October. 

BET Plus over the next two weeks will distribute the final three movies of its slate of 12 original holiday films and specials that featured several high-profile celebrities and producers, including Jasmine Guy, Tamar Braxton, Vivica A. Fox, Debbie Allen, Tichina Arnold, Jackee Harry, and Michael Colyar, according to BET Plus officials. 

BET Plus VP of content programming, strategy and original movies Marvin Neil said holiday programming has become a yearly staple for the four-year-old African American-targeted streaming service as it looks to offer more family fare.

“The holiday season is about families and togetherness, and I feel like that’s an opportunity that’s been taken up by major networks for decades,” Neil said. “The problem is major networks weren’t really showcasing the black holiday experience the way we felt we deserved, so we were very intentional about really targeting the holiday season as a moment to tell relatable stories for our viewers and for a broader audience.” 

Neil said the appeal of original holiday content attracted actors, directors and writers of color to the streaming service. On the docket for BET Plus holiday films premiering through Christmas are films starring actress/producer Robin Givens (Christmas Rescue); musicians MC Lyte and Tank (Favorite Son Christmas); and actress/singer Kandi Burruss (Whatever It Takes).

Holiday Movie Sampler

A partial list of remaining holiday-themed movies debuting on linear networks and streaming services, along with their premiere dates:

December 14

• Heaven Down Here (Hallmark Movies & Mysteries)
• Christmas Rescue (BET Plus)
• Favorite Son Christmas (BET Plus)

December 15

• The Secret Gift of Christmas (Hallmark Channel)

December 16

• Designing Christmas With You (Great American Family)
• Sealed With a List (Hallmark Channel)
• The Holiday Proposal Plan (Lifetime)
• The Christmas Detective (OWN)
• A Christmas Intern (Lifetime)

December 17

• Dial S for Santa (UPtv)
• Merry Magic Christmas (Lifetime)
• 12 Games of Christmas (Great American Family)
• Friends and Family Christmas (Hallmark Channel)

December 21

• Miracle in Bethlehem, PA (Hallmark Movies & Mysteries)
• Whatever It Takes (BET Plus)
• The Christmas Break (Fox)

December 23

• A Royal Christmas Holiday (Great American Family)
• Mom’s Christmas Boyfriend (Lifetime)
• Christmas Revisited (OWN)

December 24

• A Christmas Letter (UPtv)

Viewership numbers for live football games continue to increase as the regular season winds down.

Fox’s December 3 late afternoon NFL window, mostly featuring the Philadelphia Eagles-San Francisco 49’ers game, led all live events for the week of November 27-December 3 with 27.9 million viewers, the fifth-largest audience of the NFL season,  according to Nielsen numbers published by SportsMedia Watch. NBC’s Sunday Night Football telecast featuring the Green Bay Packers and Kansas City Chiefs finished second for the week, averaging 23.56 million viewers.

CBS' Georgia Bulldogs-Alabama Crimson Tide SEC Championship game generated 17.51 million viewers – the second biggest audience for a college football game this year behind the November 25 Ohio State-Michigan game. Prime Video’s November 30 Thursday Night Football game between the Dallas Cowboys and Seattle Seahawks drew a record 15.25 million viewers for the streaming service.

TNT’s in-season tournament game between the Golden State Warriors and the Sacramento Kings was the most-watched non-football game this week, averaging 2 million viewers. The game was the most watched of the inaugural tournament, which averaged 1.35 million viewers across ESPN, TNT, and NBA TV, according to SportsMedia Watch.

Viewers feasted on live sports programming during the Thanksgiving week, with pro and college football games generating huge viewership numbers.

NFL football games led the ratings onslaught, generating the three most-watched games of the year led by CBS's Thanksgiving day Washington Commanders-Dallas Cowboys game, which drew 41.76 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings published by SportsMedia Watch. The telecast was the second most-watched NFL regular-season game on record behind only last Thanksgiving’s Giants-Cowboys game, which drew 42 million viewers.

Fox's November 23 Green Bay Packers-Detroit Lions game drew 33 million viewers, while NBC’s San Francisco 49’ers-Seattle Seahawks Thanksgiving evening game drew 24.78 million viewers.

CBS’s November 26 late Sunday afternoon NFL window – mostly featuring the Buffalo Bills-Philadelphia Eagles matchup -- drew 30.90 million viewers for fourth place on the chart. Also, the November 20 Philadelphia Eagles-Kansas City Chiefs Monday Night Football telecast averaged more than 29 million combined viewers across ESPN, ABC, ESPN2, ESPN Plus, and ESPN Deportes – the biggest Monday Night Football audience for the Walt Disney Company since 1996, according to ESPN. 

On the college football front, Fox’s November 25 Ohio State-Michigan game drew a season-high 19 million viewers and finished as the most-watched regular season college football game in 12 years. 

The biggest non-football audience was Fox’s Thanksgiving day college basketball game between Michigan State and Arizona, which drew 5.18 million viewers, the largest regular-season college football audience in 15 years, according to SportsMedia Watch. 

Fox has shared its midseason programming plans, which includes Rob Lowe game show The Floor on January 2, Jamie Foxx game show We Are Family on January 3, and a preview of the Jon Hamm animated show Grimsburg January 7. 

Celebrity Name That Tune is on before The Floor starting January 2. 

Competition series I Can See Your Voice, hosted by Ken Jeong, is on January 3, leading into We Are Family. Anthony Anderson hosts We Are Family with his mother Doris Bowman and Foxx is the executive producer. 

Animation Sundays kick off January 7 with a special preview of Grimsburg. Starring and executive-produced by Hamm, Grimsburg centers on detective Marvin Flute. 

New episodes of Krapopolis, Bob’s Burgers and The Great North follow. Grimsburg and season four of The Great North make their time period premieres on Sunday, February 18, alongside The Simpsons and Krapopolis.

On Monday, January 22, TMZ Investigates and America’s Most Wanted are on. 

Next Level Chef returns for season three Sunday, January 28 with an NFL lead-in. It slides into its regular time slot on Thursday, February 1. 

Season two of Farmer Wants a Wife starts Thursday, February 1. Jennifer Nettles hosts the dating show. 

New seasons of The Cleaning Lady and Alert: Missing Persons Unit begin Tuesday, March 5. 

Season 11 of The Masked Singer begins Wednesday, March 6, followed by the season two starter of comedy Animal Control and animated show Family Guy. 

Anthony Anderson will host a midseason musical game show for Fox with his mother. Jamie Foxx executive produces We Are Family, and it will premiere Wednesday, January 3. 

It will showcase non-famous relatives of celebrities executing solo performances and duets with their hidden famous family member. Foxx and daughter Corinne were initially set to host. 

Anderson was on Black-ish for eight seasons, playing Dre and executive producing. He and his mother, Doris Bowman, star in the E! unscripted show Trippin’ with Anthony Anderson and Mama Doris. 

“We’re so excited to have Anthony and Doris headline We Are Family,” Allison Wallach, president of unscripted programming at Fox Entertainment, said. “They embody everything that’s special about this show–a ton of laughs, a lot of heart and some friendly on the edge-of-your-seat competition that the whole family can enjoy.”

We Are Family will feature a studio audience of 100 contestants playing through multiple rounds of clues and gameplay to win up to $150,000 each by correctly guessing which celebrity the performer is related to. Celebrities will range from musicians to athletes to actors, and some other famous people. 

“I jumped at the opportunity to host We Are Family and can’t wait for you to see all the celebrities, their relatives and the many surprises we have in store this season — and with my mama by my side, you never know what’s going to happen!” said Anderson.

Fox Alternative Entertainment created the show and co-produces it with Apploff Entertainment.  Jeff Apploff, Joni Day and Foxx are executive producers. Matilda Zoltowski is the showrunner and an executive producer.