EXCLUSIVE: Fox, along with the rest of the broadcasters, is breathing a sigh of relief that new scripted programming will return for the second half of the 2023-2024 TV season. But, while difficult, the fall season wasn’t all bad.
To fill the airtime, Fox leaned on adult animation and unscripted programming — both of which put up positive numbers for the network. New series like Krapopolis put up promising numbers, while the return of Kitchen Nightmares and a second season of Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test (and, of course, Fox’s prized series The Masked Singer) helped keep ratings steady this season.
While the upended fall schedule due to the dual strikes was “frustrating,” CEO of Fox Entertainment Rob Wade told Deadline that network’s “mindset quickly moved from frustration to seeing opportunity.”
Wade said that its priorities include being a “talent-first company,” as evidenced by striking a number of talent deals with the likes of Dan Harmon, Curtis ’50 Cent’ Jackson, Oliver Hudson, Marc Cherry and McG.
He also said that Fox has been “broadening” its global footprint. This includes at its unscripted studio Fox Alternative Entertainment, which has been developing international formats such as The Big Deal, Marriage Market and Beat My Mini-Mes, ordering international co-productions such as Canada’s Murder In A Small Town, setting up a British development slate and launching Fox Entertainment Global.
“The success of the fall really has been down to the execution of the strategy that we’ve built in the last year or so… we’ve really had to think about where we are positioned in the business, and there’s a few different pillars to the strategy,” he said.
According to Fox, entertainment programming has generate 18.2B minutes watched across linear Live + 35 and digital platforms for the first half of the season through December 3. On Hulu, Fox programming has tallied more than 16.3M unique users, totaling more than 4.2B minutes watched on the platform. The minutes viewed are determined using 35-day viewing data for the network’s shows.
Broadcast networks have recently begun reporting viewership in terms of minutes or hours viewed, as a response to this adoption of viewing time as the dominant metric used among the streaming platforms. While it is not perfect, it does allow for a better comparison between the broadcast networks and streamers. Nielsen currently reports streaming audience data in minutes viewed, while Netflix and other individual services tend to opt for hours viewed.
As one of the last remaining “independent players,” as Wade put it, Fox has had quite the task on its hands over the last several years to determine its position in the television landscape as broadcast’s business has evolved due to streaming. With no service of its own, Fox content goes next-day to Hulu, where it jockeys with Disney content for eyeballs.
It’s difficult to compare Fox’s Hulu viewership to anything else on the platform, since Hulu does not report regular viewership. Fox reports that the network’s content has managed 176.5M “starts” on Hulu, which gives a very rudimentary indication of just how many people are tuning into the content, at least to try it out. This metric is probably a bit inflated, since the same user could start Fox content multiple times.
The last week of September, Fox began to launch many of its buoys for the fall season, including Dan Harmon’s new adult animated series Krapopolis. After a preview of the series was delayed the year before, Krapopolis finally debuted as television’s most-watched animated series premiere in a decade with 7.8M multi-platform viewers after seven days, which is more than double the 3.8M live + same-day viewers who tuned in for the premiere on Fox.
Fox also positioned Krapopolis in the coveted post-NFL spot on Sundays, which helped boost eyes on the series. On December 3, the time slot helped boost Krapopolis to 4.1M viewers — its biggest L+SD audience to-date. The season averaged just over 2M L+SD viewers per episode and a 0.6 rating among adults 18-49.
Adult animation is a particularly difficult genre to crack, and using a new animated offering to prop up a fall schedule otherwise fairly devoid of scripted programming seemed like a bold move, though Wade explained “animation has been an important pillar of our schedule for many years.”
While Krapopolis wasn’t necessarily winning its primetime slot this season, Wade maintains that the network is willing to be patient as the appetite for the series grows.
“These shows tend to take at least four or five seasons to really build the following you want, so when you look back at the lifecycle of a Bob’s Burgers or of Family Guy, they took multiple seasons to really settle in and grow…animation takes time to nurture it, and we’re very committed to doing that over the next few years,” he said.
That level of commitment, especially to new programming, is waning as the streaming business model takes over television. But, the reality is that broadcast networks don’t have the same luxuries as a streaming service, which can overload the platform with content rather than commit to the success of just a few shows. Not to mention, even the most successful streaming series doesn’t really benefit a platform after three to five seasons.
“The way we construct our deals… is we are aiming for the show to go on for literally decades, and for both the network and the creators to benefit from that,” Wade said. “So we’re creating an economic model around every show, whether it be a drama or a comedy or unscripted show, that we feel good about for the long term. We don’t want to be three seasons and out.”
Within reason, of course. Fox has not been immune to the changing realities of the TV business as streaming has taken over. Last year, the network made the decision not to renew the 20th Television-produced 9-1-1, its highest-rated scripted series, due to financial constraints. Instead, the network has opted to focus on investing in scripted series it owns or co-owns, like Animal Control, The Cleaning Lady and Alert: Missing Persons Unit.
All three scripted series return to the network in March, after putting up some fairly strong numbers in their inaugural seasons. None were approaching the audience that 9-1-1 managed for the network, though Wade appears to be using a similar strategy as with animation, giving the series room to breathe as they find their footing.
With unscripted hits like The Masked Singer continuing to perform for Fox, it is also no surprise that they continue to lean into unscripted series. In fact, Fox may owe Gordon Ramsay an MVP award at this point, as the chef continues to churn out popular shows for the network.
“He really is one of TV’s strongest franchises,” Wade said, adding that Ramsay has “really been a huge part of the success of our network for the year and promises again to be for that for the year to come as well.”
Ramsay’s series Kitchen Nightmares returned to the air after a 10-year hiatus. The premiere episode only averaged around 1.5M live + same-day viewers on the linear channel, but Fox contends that the unscripted fare is a strong draw on Hulu.
The season averaged 2.5M viewers per episode on Hulu, making it Fox’s most-streamed program of the season, besting competition like The Masked Singer and Special Forces: World’s Toughest Test. It is also apparently Fox’s No. 3 program on Hulu overall, behind Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers.
It’s Fox’s only unscripted program to ever attract a majority of its multi-platform audience from Hulu, according to the network.
Kitchen Nightmares isn’t alone, though as Special Forces also draws a large audience from Hulu. The reality competition series returned for Season 2 in September, averaging about 1.2M viewers per episode. That’s down a bit from Season 1’s 1.8M viewers, though Fox seems happy with the delayed audience for the series.
On digital platforms, Special Forces delivers about 1.5M viewers in the L7 window, basically doubling the audience for each episode. That viewership is up 19% versus Season 1.
“The audience has an expectation of the unexpected from us. That’s very difficult to hit every single time. We try to make sure that we are delivering new, innovative IP and we are very committed to not just looking in the rearview mirror,” Wade mused of Fox’s unscripted programming. “I think it’s very easy as a broadcast network, and in a position, quite frankly, as an executive, to play it safe and to populate the schedule with older, more tried and tested shows. But I think what we want to do is try and push boundaries…to innovate in that space.”
Fox also seems off to a promising start with the second half of the broadcast season. The network kicked off the year by debuting two new reality game shows, The Floor and We Are Family.
After three days of viewing, The Floor mustered the biggest multi-platform audience for any unscripted debut on the network since Next Level Chef with 3.9M viewers. It is also the most-streamed game show debut ever for Fox. The premiere of We Are Family also appears to have secured strong numbers with 3.2M viewers in L3.