
Will Arnett will return as host and executive producer of the competition show.

A rather unusual spot appearing to be a Fox NFL promo aired during yesterday’s NFL pre-game show. What made it particularly unusual was that it included an EAS-like tone, and had a URL at the bottom of the screen for “WWW.FOXNFLEMERGENCYALERT.COM.” That URL currently links to a “Let’s Go Brandon” website that I don’t encourage you to visit because our own spam software blocks access to it on the stated grounds of “Risky-Sites.”

New series The Cleaning Lady, Pivoting and Monarch are also set for early 2022 premieres at the broadcaster.

Fox has picked up a second season of its popular summer drama series Fantasy Island. The renewal, announced by Fox Thursday, follows strong ratings for the contemporary version of the classic 1977 series, from writer-producers Liz Craft and Sarah Fain. This past summer, the reboot starring Roselyn Sanchez and Kiara Barnes, ranked as the No. 1 new scripted program among adults 18-49 and was Fox’s most streamed new drama series since 9-1-1: Lone Star.

The network has ordered a new version of its dating show Joe Millionaire to debut in January — 19 years after the first iteration of the show became a huge hit. The new show is officially titled Joe Millionaire: For Richer or Poorer and will feature two men courting 20 women. One of the guys is, in fact, a millionaire, and the other decidedly isn’t; the women won’t know which is which at the outset.

The Atlanta Braves’ six-game victory over the Houston Astros averaged 11,750,000 viewers on Fox, the network said Wednesday. This year’s Series averaged a 6.5 rating and 16 share, up from a 5.2 rating/12 share last year.

Michael Thorn, president of entertainment at Fox Entertainment, announced on Thursday that Fox has ordered Grimsburg, an all-new animated comedy starring and executive produced by Hamm. Fully owned by Fox Entertainment and produced by its Emmy winning animation studio Bento Box Entertainment, Grimsburg will premiere in 2023.

In the wake of a court order that permanently shut down Locast, the erstwhile provider of free streams of local broadcast TV feeds is now on the hook to pay $32 million in statutory damages after agreeing to settle a copyright lawsuit brought by ABC, CBS, Fox and NBCUniversal.

WWE is the latest entertainment company to catch NFT fever. The wrestling entertainment producer inked an exclusive, multiyear deal with Fox Entertainment’s Blockchain Creative Labs to launch an NFT marketplace for licensed digital WWE tokens and collectibles.

The Senate Commerce Committee‘s Subcommittee on Communications, Media and Broadband on Wednesday (Oct. 6) took up a bill that would force Fox to program WWOR, licensed to Secaucus, N.J., but serving the New York City market, more to committee Democrats‘ liking in terms of local news and other programming aimed at the Garden State. It is possible the bill could be appended to an end-of-year, must-pass funding package.
How Did WMSN Get Its New News Anchor To Do That?

Linda Hart and her team at WMSN, Sinclair’s Fox affiliate in Madison, Wis., came up with a winning idea to promote its new news anchor through a tie-in to Fox’s popular The Masked Singer.
Tubi (www.tubi.tv), FOX Entertainment’s free streaming service, today announced its upcoming true crime docuseries, Meet, Marry, Murder, as part of its all-new original content rollout. Hosted and executive-produced by Michelle Trachtenberg, the series will premiere Wednesday, Oct. 6 with all 13 episodes dropping on the platform. In addition, Tubi will unlock a special preview of Meet, Marry, Murder […]

The ACM Award winner and Grammy nominee will star with Susan Sarandon and Anna Friel in the midseason drama.

Susan Sarandon and Anna Friel have been cast as the leads of Fox’s upcoming country music drama Monarch, the broadcast network said Tuesday. Premiering at midseason, Monarch is described as “an epic, multigenerational musical drama about America’s first family of country music,” the fictional Romans.

With the advertising market for TV sports running hot, Fox is looking to sell commercials in the 2023 Super Bowl to advertisers now, 18 months before the game kicks off. The 2021 National Football League season kicks off Thursday, and Fox and the other networks are reporting a surge in demand that has driven sales volume up significantly and hiking pricing by low-double digits — increases not seen for about a decade.

Another Chastain Park employee is scrubbing out. Emily VanCamp, who has starred on The Resident since its 2018 premiere, is exiting the Fox medical drama ahead of Season 5. The circumstances surrounding her exit have not been made clear, though the actress revealed earlier this month — much to fans’ surprise — that she and husband Josh Bowman recently welcomed a daughter, Iris.

Gordon Ramsay is returning to the kitchen for another season of Masterchef. Fox has renewed the hit cooking competition series, produced by Endemol Shine North America and One Potato Two Potato, with Ramsay and fellow judges Aarón Sánchez and Joe Bastianich all returning for a 12th season.

As the COVID-19 crisis gripped the nation, millions of people went into lockdown and suddenly found a lot of unexpected free time. Some picked up new or long-forgotten hobbies, while others soaked up extra family time. Still others combined the two and began focusing on more involved home-cooked meals. Social media exploded with images, videos and commentary about sourdough starters and banana bread, and that inspired a new wave of unscripted television series.

The network has handed out an early second season renewal for the animated comedy from creators Gabrielle Allan, Jennifer Crittenden and Clea DuVall. The news comes as the series featuring the voices of DuVall, Kudrow and Sharon Horgan, returns Aug. 9 for the second half of its first season.

NBC’s primetime Thursday coverage of the Tokyo Olympics averaged 8.6 million total viewers and a 1.9 demo rating, marking the summer games’ smallest audience yet (per fast nationals) and matching their demo low (set last Saturday). On Fox, an NFL preseason match-up between the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers averaged 6.2 million viewers and a 1.7 demo rating.

The new deal with Fox, which comes as networks and distributors have criticized Nielsen for under-counting viewing during the pandemic, includes ComScore’s TV measurement service.
Fox Corp. Closes Fiscal Year On High Note

Fox Corp. closed its fiscal year with a solid performance in its fourth quarter, beating Wall Street revenue and earnings forecasts. The TV and streaming company thrived on a bounce-back for advertising compared with the depths of COVID-19 a year ago. Total revenue climbed 20% to $2.89 billion and earnings per share came in at 65 cents, up from 62 cents in the year-ago period.

The celebrity chef and TV host and Fox Entertainment are forming a new production outfit, Studio Ramsay Global, that will develop, produce and distribute unscripted programming focused on food and lifestyle for Fox, its free streaming service Tubi and other platforms. The new entity will acquire all of Studio Ramsay’s current TV business, with Fox financing the purchase.

President Joe Biden name checked The Walt Disney Co., Netflix, Google, Fox Corp. and other private companies for instituting new vaccine requirements for their employees. As he referred to the alarming rise in COVID-19 cases as the “pandemic of the unvaccinated,” the president also sought to single out major corporations that in recent weeks have instituted their own types of mandates.

Seth MacFarlane once again took extreme displeasure in comments made by Fox News host Tucker Carlson, another episode in a long saga between the Family Guy creator and Fox News corporate sibling Fox Entertainment, which airs his long-running animated series Family Guy.

Last but never ever least, Fox — following The CW, CBS, ABC and NBC — has revealed its schedule for the Fall 2021 season, and lo and behold they’ve put together a traditional “Premiere Week.” As previously reported, 9-1-1 is staying put on Mondays though offshoot Lone Star is being held for midseason. (Taking over Lone Star‘s cushy perch this fall will be the Scott Foley-fronted dance dramedy The Big Leap.) Also, Lee Daniels’ Our Kind of People, a soapy drama starring Yaya DaCosta (Chicago Med) and Morris Chestnut (The Resident), will take over the Tuesday time slot previously occupied by the cancelled Prodigal Son.

Season 33 of The Simpsons will kick off in a musical fashion with a little help from Frozen star Kristen Bell, the long-running show’s producers revealed on Saturday. During the Comic-Con panel “The Simpsons Season 33 and Beyond,” Executive Producer Matt Selman teased what fans can expect from the Season 33 premiere, which airs on Sept. 26. The musical episode, titled “The Star of the Backstage,” will feature all original songs with Bell as Marge’s singing voice.