Fox has ordered a new series it hopes will help develop its
future multi-camera comedy brand.
The Short-Com Comedy
Hour, set to premiere in summer 2013, will feature four short-form sitcoms
per hour-long broadcast featuring established and up-and-coming actors and
comedians. The development platform will have the comedic talent hone their
material in scripted vignettes, with Fox commissioning the best to series.
"We are basically ripping open the traditional scripted comedy
development process with The Short-Com
Comedy Hour," said Kevin Reilly, president of Entertainment, Fox
Broadcasting Company. "Our end goal is to provide distinct comedy voices with a
world-class platform to experiment, grow and perfect their ideas and to
hopefully build them into mainstream comedy hits in the future."
Fox announced a similar move on the animated side last
January,
creating an alternative animated content unit to develop and produce series for
a Saturday late-night programming block and digital multi-platform network. The
network said at the time it would launch four new animated shows (11-minute
shorts and 22-minute series) per season starting in January 2013, to build a
bench of series that could step in when its long-running franchises like The Simpsons finally go off the air.
