title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: By 2016, "Empire" and "The X-Files" ranked in the Nielsen Top 10 for the season, the first season with 2 Fox programs entering the top rankings since the "American Idol"-"House" tandem of the 2007–2008 season (and the first ever season that Fox achieved such rankings without "American Idol" or any other reality television show from Fox in the Top 10). The same year also marked the finale of "American Idol" in its original run on Fox after airing for fifteen seasons, ending an era of one of the most successful shows in U.S. television history.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In February 2017, Fox broadcast Super Bowl LI, which attracted an average 111.3 million viewers—ranking among the top five most-watched Super Bowl games, and the second-highest audience in network history behind Super Bowl XLVIII.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In March 2017, Rob Wade was named Fox's new president of alternative entertainment and specials Rob Wade; he had previously worked as a showrunner for "Dancing with the Stars", as head of entertainment for BBC Worldwide, and as executive producer of "America's Got Talent" and "The X Factor".


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: On July 27, 2018, in a deal first announced December 2017, and completed March 20, 2019, 21st Century Fox shareholders agreed to sell most of its key assets (including 20th Century Fox, 20th Century Fox Television, and FX Networks) to The Walt Disney Company for $71.3 billion, following the spin-off of certain businesses. The sale did not include the Fox Broadcasting Company and television stations or the Fox Sports, Fox News, and Fox Business cable channels, which were to be maintained under a company tentatively referred to as "New Fox". Because Disney already owns the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the acquisition of the Fox network by Disney would have been illegal under the Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s rules prohibiting a merger between any of the four major broadcast networks. As a result of the Disney/Fox deal, and with the merger of CBS and Viacom on December 4, 2019, Fox has become the only major U.S. broadcast network without attachment to any film studio.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: It was acknowledged that Fox had placed a larger emphasis on its sports programming in its first upfronts since the deal was announced, including the acquisitions of the NFL's "Thursday Night Football" package and rights to the FIFA World Cup. It was also noted that Fox had been increasingly pivoting towards programs that could generate large audiences, as opposed to ones that become successful primarily through critical acclaim. On June 27, 2018, WWE announced that "SmackDown" would move to Fox on Friday nights beginning October 4, 2019, following its run on USA Network, under a five-year contract valued at $205 million per-year. The network also began to increase its non-scripted output, announcing the new celebrity music competition series "The Masked Singer" (based on the South Korean format "King of Mask Singer"), and the new game shows "Mental Samurai" and "Spin the Wheel" for the 2018–19 season.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In August 2018, Fox Television Group CEO Dana Walden stated that the network planned to commission and acquire more series from "independent" studios not co-owned with the Big Three networks, explaining that the vertical integration of the major broadcast networks (including Fox itself) with associated studios had limited opportunities for outside studios, and cited several top programs that were distributed by third-parties, such as "The Big Bang Theory" and "This Is Us" (produced by Warner Bros. Television and 20th Television for CBS and NBC respectively). There were also plans for Fox to acquire new pitches directly from their writers, and offer them to outside producers. As part of the transition, Fox aimed to gradually reduce the amount of scripted programming development coming from 20th Television, although stalwarts such as "The Simpsons" would remain with the network.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Following the completion of the sale, network head Dana Walden became chairwoman of Disney Television Studios and ABC Entertainment. AMC president Charlie Collier succeeded Gary Newman as chairman and CEO of Fox on November 1, 2018. Newman was expected to temporarily remain with Fox in a transitional role, in order to oversee the corporate transition. The start of 2019 saw "The Masked Singer" premiere to Fox's highest ratings for a non-scripted premiere without an NFL lead-in since 2011, and record the largest-ever Nielsen ratings gain for a non-scripted series after three days of delayed viewership. On January 30, 2019, Fox ordered a second season, while the first-season finale saw an average audience of 11.5 million viewers.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: With the completion of Disney's purchase the next day, the "New Fox" entity, officially named Fox Corporation, formally began trading on March 19, 2019. At its 2019–20 upfronts, Fox announced 10 new scripted series for the upcoming season, with three ("Almost Family", "Bless the Harts", and "Prodigal Son") slated for the fall lineup, as well as the second and third seasons of "The Masked Singer" — scheduled for October 2019 and February 2020 respectively (with the latter premiering after Super Bowl LIV). Fox also established a new in-house studio, Fox Alternative Entertainment, for investments in non-scripted formats. It is led by Rob Wade, while its first production was the second season of "The Masked Singer" (after season 1 was produced by Endemol Shine North America).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: "Thursday Night Football" finished as the second highest-rated series of the 2018–19 television season in the key demographic, behind only "Sunday Night Football", while "The Masked Singer" finished tied for third with "The Big Bang Theory" and "This Is Us". In the 2019–20, "Thursday Night Football" and "The Masked Singer" once again finished as the second and third highest-rated programs in the key demographic, and Fox finished the season as the highest-rated network among viewers 18–49 (with CBS leading in overall viewers).<ref name="S2/3AvgRatings"></ref> Fox repeated this victory in the 2020–21 season, but was narrowly beaten by NBC for 2021–22 by a tenth of a ratings share. In October 2022, Collier stepped down to join Roku, with Rob Wade promoted to president and CEO of Fox Entertainment.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: , Fox currently provides 17 hours of regularly scheduled network programming each week. The network provides fifteen hours of prime time programming to its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations on Monday through Saturdays from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. and Sundays from 7:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. (all times Eastern and Pacific). An hour of late night programming is also offered on Saturdays from 11:00 p.m. to 12:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time, a former hour of original comedy, but currently a repeat hour for primetime series (though scheduling for that hour varies depending on the market due to late local newscasts airing in the traditional 11:00 p.m./10:00 p.m. timeslot on some Fox stations). and the hour-long Sunday morning political discussion show – and the network's only regular national news program – "Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace" (airing from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific, although the timeslot also varies by market due to local news or public affairs programming).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Sports programming is also provided; usually on weekends (albeit not every weekend year-round), and most commonly airing between 11:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. or as late as 8:00 p.m. on Sundays (often airing for longer hours during the National Football League season, slightly less during NASCAR season); between 12:00 p.m. and 7:00 p.m. (during baseball, college football, and college basketball season) on Saturday afternoons; and during prime time on certain Saturday evenings. The Saturday prime time block if any sports programming is scheduled for a particular week on that night currently varies between occasional Premier Boxing Champions events, Major League Baseball, or NASCAR coverage in the late winter and early spring/summer, and college football coverage during the fall.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Except for "The Critic", "The PJs" and "Futurama", which were respectively cancelled in 1995, 2000 and 2003, typically every Sunday night during prime time (unless preempted, usually by sports telecasts), Fox airs a lineup incorporating original adult animation sitcoms, all being produced (or co-produced with Fox for post-2019 works) by the network's original sister company, 20th Television, which is currently a subsidiary of Walt Disney Television. This block of adult cartoons became a staple of the network airing under the brand "Animation Domination" from May 1, 2005, to September 14, 2014, when the network rebranded the block as "Sunday Funday" as a result of the re-incorporation of live-action comedy series on the Sunday night lineup after ten years (aside from occasional burn-offs of series aired on other nights during the 7:00 p.m. Eastern/Pacific hour), although animated series remain an integral part of that night's schedule.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The first programs to air as part of the "Animation Domination" lineup were "American Dad!" (which also had its beginnings in the lineup, and moved to TBS in October 2014), "Family Guy" (which returned to the network after a three-year cancellation when "Animation Domination" began), "The Simpsons" (the longest-running cartoon on Fox, predating the lineup by 16 years), and "King of the Hill" (which also predated the lineup by eight years). Once "King of the Hill" was cancelled, "Family Guy"s spinoff "The Cleveland Show" would air from 2009 to 2013 and Loren Bouchard's next series, "Bob's Burgers" would air starting in 2011. Animated shows currently airing as part of the lineup include "The Simpsons", "Family Guy", "Bob's Burgers", "Duncanville", "The Great North" and "Housebroken". Other shows in the lineup include "Sit Down, Shut Up", "Allen Gregory", "Napoleon Dynamite", "Bordertown", "Bless the Harts", and the live-action/animated hybrid "Son of Zorn".


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: An extension of the Sunday prime-time block called "Animation Domination High-Def" launched on Saturday late nights in July 2013 (marking the return of first-run programming in that time period since the 2010 cancellation of "The Wanda Sykes Show"), with "ADHD Shorts", "Axe Cop" and "High School USA!". Due to low ratings, Fox announced on April 17, 2014, that it would discontinue "Animation Domination High-Def"; although the block was slated to end on June 28, 2014, it continued to air in encore form until the start of the 2016–17 season, when the hour returned to airing encores of comedies or reality series.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox began airing children's programming on September 8, 1990, with the debut of the Fox Children's Network (rebranded as the Fox Kids Network in 1991, and then to simply Fox Kids in 1998), a programming block that aired on Saturday mornings and weekday afternoons. Programming within the Fox Kids block consisted mainly of animated series, although it also featured some live-action series as part of the lineup. Shows featured in the block included "Bobby's World", "", "Spider-Man", "The Tick", "Fun House", "Goosebumps" and "Digimon"; it also aired select shows from Warner Bros. Animation including the popular animated series "Tiny Toon Adventures", "Animaniacs" and "" (Warner Bros. pulled "Batman" and "Animaniacs" from the Fox Kids lineup in September 1995, moving both shows, as well as "Tiny Toons" – which had already ended its run – to the newly launched Kids' WB block on The WB). Fox Kids' most successful series, however, was "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers" (from eventual sister company and Fox Kids co-parent Saban Entertainment), which debuted in 1993 and became the block's flagship program until it moved to ABC and Toon Disney in 2002.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In October 2001, Fox sold its children's division, Saban Entertainment and Fox Family Worldwide (the parent subsidiary of cable network Fox Family Channel, now Freeform) to The Walt Disney Company for $5.3 billion. The network relegated the Fox Kids block to Saturdays in January 2002 (turning over the two-hour timeslot held by the weekday block to its owned-and-operated and affiliated stations, rather than retaining the slots and filling them with adult-oriented daytime shows); then on September 14, 2002, as part of a time-lease agreement with 4Kids Entertainment to program the remaining four-hour Saturday morning lineup, Fox Kids was replaced by a new children's program block called FoxBox (which was renamed 4Kids TV in February 2005). Notable programs in that block include "Yu-Gi-Oh!", "", "Sonic X" and "One Piece".


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox discontinued the 4Kids TV block on December 27, 2008, due to conflicts between the network and 4Kids Entertainment that were later settled, regarding 4Kids' failure to pay Fox for the programming lease rights, and the network's inability to fulfill a promise guaranteeing clearance on 90% of its stations and to get other stations to carry the block in certain markets where a Fox station declined it (an issue that plagued Fox's children's program blocks since the start of its affiliation deal with New World Communications). Fox had earlier announced, on November 23, that it would no longer carry children's programming in the time period, citing stiff competition from cable channels aimed at the demographic; the network instead turned over two of the four vacant Saturday morning hours to its affiliates to allow them to air local newscasts or educational programs purchased from the syndication market, while it retained the remaining two hours to run a network-managed paid programming block, "Weekend Marketplace", which debuted on January 3, 2009.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: As of 2022, some former 4Kids TV shows such as "Yu-Gi-Oh!" and "Sonic X" are made available to stream on the free ad-supported Tubi streaming service, which Fox acquired in April 2020. And also, "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" is made available to stream on both the free ad-supported Pluto TV and subscription-based Paramount+ streaming services following that property's 2009 acquisition by Nickelodeon.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: On September 13, 2014, "Xploration Station", a two-hour syndicated block produced by Steve Rotfeld Productions, began airing on Fox stations owned by several affiliate groups including Fox Television Stations and Tribune Broadcasting. The block, which complies with guidelines defined by the Children's Television Act, features programs focused on the STEM fields. Stations can choose to either carry "Xploration Station", continue to air "Weekend Marketplace" (as the Sinclair Broadcast Group chose to do, since it already carries syndicated E/I programming purchased by the company across its Fox affiliates, although Sinclair added the block on most of its Fox affiliates in September 2016) or in case of Birmingham, not at all (since Raycom Media/Gray Television carried E/I programs through existing contracts with syndicators of educational program content instead).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Unlike ABC, CBS, and NBC, Fox does not currently air national news programs (morning, evening or overnight) or newsmagazines choosing to focus solely on its prime time schedule, sports and other ancillary network programming. The absence of a national news program on the Fox network is despite the fact that its parent company, Fox Corporation, owns Fox News Channel, which launched in October 1996 and currently maintains near-universal distribution within the United States via pay television providers. Fox News is not structured as a news division of the Fox network, and operates as a technically separate entity within Fox Corporation through the company's Fox News Group subsidiary. However, it does produce some content that is carried by the broadcast network, which is usually separate from the news coverage aired by the cable channel; in particular, FNC anchor Bill Hemmer anchors most prime time news presentations on the Fox network, especially during political news events (which are anchored by Bret Baier on Fox News Channel).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Specifically, the Fox network airs coverage of the State of the Union address, presidential debates, national election coverage, as well as live breaking news coverage currently branded as a "Fox News Special Report" (also branded as a "Fox News Alert" or sometimes a "Fox News Red Alert"); carriage of such special coverage of a breaking news story may vary from station to station, and is often limited to events that occur during the network's usual prime time block (for example, unlike the Big Three, Fox does not often provide coverage of major political convention speeches, which usually occur during the 10:00 p.m. (Eastern Time) hour during which most of its affiliates air local newscasts; however, the majority of Fox's owned-and-operated stations and affiliate groups do carry weekday breaking news briefs). The political discussion show "Fox News Sunday" also airs on the Fox network on Sunday mornings and is rebroadcast later in the day on FNC. Fox also operates an affiliate news service called Fox NewsEdge, which launched with Fox News Channel in 1996, and provides national and international news reports, and feature stories for Fox stations to use in their own local newscasts.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox first tried its hand at a national news program in prime time with the hour-long weekly newsmagazine "The Reporters", which was produced by the same team behind the Fox Television Stations-distributed syndicated tabloid program "A Current Affair"; the program ran from 1988 to 1990, when it was cancelled due to low ratings. From 1987 until about 1996, Fox also aired news capsules that aired within its prime time schedule, branded first as "Fox News Extra", and later as "Fox News Updates", which were produced at New York City O&O WNYW and used their anchors. Another failed attempt occurred in 1993, when Fox launched "Front Page" (which included among its five hosts, Ron Reagan and Josh Mankiewicz), in an attempt to capture a younger demographic for a newsmagazine program.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The network tried its hand at a newsmagazine again in 1998 with "Fox Files", hosted by Fox News Channel anchors Catherine Crier and Jon Scott, as well as a team of correspondents; it lasted a little over a year before being cancelled. Its last attempt at a newsmagazine series occurred during the 2002–03 Sweeps period, with "The Pulse", hosted by Fox News Channel anchor Shepard Smith. On May 17, 2016, the network aired an interview special with then Fox News primetime anchor Megyn Kelly, "Megyn Kelly Presents".


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox also attempted national morning programs, only the first of which aired on the network itself. Its first venture at such a program was "Fox After Breakfast", an hour-long morning news and lifestyle show, hosted by Tom Bergeron, Laurie Hibberd, and Vicki Lawrence, that ran on the network from 1996 to 1998 (Fox aired the program at 9:00 a.m. – as opposed to the 7:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. time slot that NBC, CBS, and ABC air their national morning shows – in order to accommodate local morning newscasts that ran in the latter slot on some of its stations); the program originated as "Breakfast Time" in 1995 on sister cable channel FX. Fox tried again in 2002 with "Good Day Live", a heavily entertainment-focused syndicated offshoot of "Good Day L.A.", a news/entertainment/lifestyle program that debuted in 1993 on Los Angeles owned-and-operated station KTTV; the national version of the program was cancelled in 2005. On January 22, 2007, Fox premiered "The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet" on its owned-and-operated stations; hosted by Mike Jerrick and Juliet Huddy (then-anchors of Fox News Channel's "DaySide"), the show was lighter in format and more entertainment-oriented, though its focus often changed when a major news story occurred. In February 2007, the program was syndicated to other stations including many affiliated with ABC, NBC and CBS in markets where it was not carried by a Fox or MyNetworkTV affiliate; "The Morning Show" was cancelled in June 2009.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: When the network launched, Fox management, having seen the critical role that sports programming soccer events, in particular had played in the growth of the British satellite service BSkyB, believed that sports – and specifically, professional football would be the engine that would make Fox a major network the quickest. In 1987, after ABC initially hedged on renewing its contract to broadcast "Monday Night Football", Fox made an offer to the National Football League to acquire the rights for the same amount that ABC had been paying, about $13 million per game at the time. However, partly due to the fact that Fox had not yet established itself as a major network, the NFL chose to renew its contract with ABC (where "Monday Night Football" remained until its move to sister cable channel ESPN in September 2006).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Six years later, when the league entered contract negotiations with its television partners, Fox placed a $1.58 billion bid to obtain broadcast rights to the National Football Conference – covering four seasons of games, beginning with the 1994 NFL season. The NFL selected the Fox bid on December 18, 1993, stripping CBS of football telecasts for the first time since 1955. The event placed Fox on par with the "Big Three" television networks and ushered in an era of growth for the NFL. Fox's acquisition of the NFL rights also quickly led toward the network reaching an affiliation deal with New World Communications to change the affiliations of twelve of its stations to Fox (see above). The rights gave Fox many new viewers and a platform for advertising its other programs.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: With a sports division now established with the arrival of the NFL, Fox acquired broadcast television rights to the National Hockey League (1994–99), Major League Baseball (since 1996) and NASCAR auto racing (since 2001, initially as part of a deal that also involved NBC and TNT).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: From 2007 to 2010, Fox aired the Bowl Championship Series—a group of college football bowl games held around New Year's Day, and the BCS National Championship Game (with the exception of any event held at the Rose Bowl Stadium, including the Rose Bowl Game and the Rose Bowl-hosted 2010 BCS National Championship Game, as their organizer maintained a separate contract with ABC). Following the conclusion of the deal, Fox acquired rights to the Big Ten Conference and Pac-12 Conference's newly established football championship games (the latter alternating yearly with ESPN). In 2017, Fox acquired tier 1 rights to the Big Ten Conference.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In August 2011, Fox and mixed martial arts promotion Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) reached a multi-year agreement, which included the rights to broadcast four live events in prime time or late night annually, marking the first time that the UFC aired its events on broadcast television. Its first UFC on Fox event, Velasquez vs. Dos Santos, aired on November 12, 2011. This deal ended at the end of 2018, with UFC events moving to ESPN and ESPN+.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The network's telecast of Super Bowl XLVIII remains the highest rated program in the history of the network, and the second highest rated U.S. television program of all time. Meanwhile, its telecast of Super Bowl LI remains the record holder for the largest overall audience ever tallied in U.S. television history.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox has 18 owned-and-operated stations, and current and pending affiliation agreements with 226 additional television stations encompassing 50 states, the District of Columbia and three U.S. possessions; through its Fox Television Stations subsidiary, Fox has the most owned-and-operated stations of the major American commercial broadcast networks. The network has a national reach of 95.77% of all households in the United States (or 299,268,292 Americans with at least one television set). Currently, New Hampshire, New Jersey and Delaware are the only U.S. states where Fox does not have a locally licensed affiliate (New Hampshire is served by Boston's WFXT, New Jersey is split between New York City O&O WNYW and Philadelphia O&O WTXF, while Delaware is served by WTXF and Salisbury, Maryland affiliate WBOC-DT2).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox largely discontinued analog broadcasts on June 12, 2009, as part of the transition to digital television. As a newer broadcast network, Fox still has a few low-power affiliates, covering markets like Youngstown, Ohio (WYFX-LD). In some markets, including both of the ones mentioned, these stations also maintain simulcasts on a subchannel of a co-owned/managed full-power television station. Fox also maintains a sizeable number of subchannel-only affiliations in cities located outside the 50 largest Nielsen-designated markets that do not have enough full-power stations to support a standalone affiliation or have a low-power station as the only other option as an affiliate, though a couple have appeared in the top 50; the largest subchannel-only Fox affiliate by market size is WSYX-DT3 in Columbus, Ohio, #34 by Nielsen.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Currently outside Fox's core O&O group, Nexstar Media Group is Fox's largest affiliate group in terms of overall market and numerical reach, with 42 stations (including some former Fox O&Os that were spun off in 2008 to Local TV, which Tribune Broadcasting later acquired in 2013, to finance former Fox parent News Corporation's purchase of "The Wall Street Journal"; Nexstar purchased Tribune in the fall of 2019); the Sinclair Broadcast Group is the second largest operator of Fox stations by numerical total, owning or providing services to 26 Fox-affiliated stations.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox previously distributed its programming in markets that did not have enough stations to support an affiliate via Foxnet, a cable channel acting as an alternate national feed for small and certain mid-sized U.S. markets (generally those within the bottom 110 Nielsen media markets) that launched in 1991 and operated until its shutdown on September 12, 2006; the channel featured a master schedule of programs acquired from the syndication market and some brokered programming to fill time slots not occupied by Fox network programming. The concept behind Foxnet served as the basis for The WB 100+ Station Group (launched in September 1998 as the cable-only feed of The WB) and The CW Plus (the immediate successor of The WB 100+, which launched in September 2006 as a cable-only/digital multicast feed of The CW), which both allow the customization of localized branding (which Foxnet did not allow its cable partners to do) in addition to allowing affiliates to sell local advertising.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox's programming schedule differs from the "Big Three" networks in several significant ways: the network airs its prime time programming for only two hours on Monday through Saturday evenings and three hours on Sundays, compared to the three hours on Monday through Saturdays (from 8:00 to 11:00 p.m.) and four hours on Sunday nights (from 7:00 to 11:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time) programmed by the three longer-established networks, ABC, CBS and NBC. This scheduling is termed as "common prime", referring to the programming of prime time content across all of the conventional broadcast networks during the early- and mid-evening hours, while the 10:00 p.m. (Eastern) hour is programmed only by the three older networks.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox has traditionally avoided programming the 10:00 p.m. hour, choosing to cede the time period to its local affiliates for them to program, many of which air local newscasts during that hour; however, some exceptions do exist for select special film presentations, which by virtue of their running time (depending on whether the film's original length, combined with commercial breaks that would be included in the television cut, would exceed a traditional two-hour broadcast timeslot) must spill over into the 10:00 p.m. hour, and overruns from live sports telecasts scheduled to air during prime time. However, the network did regularly schedule programming in the 10:00 p.m. hour on Sunday nights from September 1989 to September 1993 (when that specific time period was turned back over to its affiliates), although it never added programming at that hour on any other night. Fox's original reason for the reduced number of prime time hours was to avoid fulfilling FCC requirements in effect at the time to be considered a network, and to be free of resulting regulations, although these rules have since been relaxed.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Despite being a major network, in addition to not carrying national morning and evening newscasts, Fox also does not air any network daytime programming (such as soap operas, game shows or talk shows). Because of this, the network's owned-and-operated stations and affiliates handle the responsibility of programming daytime hours with syndicated or locally produced programming (then corporate sister 20th Television distributes several syndicated daytime programs carried by many Fox stations, such as "Divorce Court" and "The Wendy Williams Show"; Fox Television Stations also test markets certain series from 20th Television and other syndicators such as Warner Bros. Television Distribution that are proposed for national distribution on some of its stations). The network also does not carry network-supplied children's programming on Saturday mornings or late-night programming on Monday through Friday nights. Local affiliates either produce their own programming or run syndicated programs during these time periods. Because of the erratic scheduling of the network's sports programming, many Fox stations choose to run a mix of syndicated programming, infomercials and especially movies to fill weekend afternoon timeslots when a sports event is not scheduled to air.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In addition, from the network's inception, Fox has produced two versions of its program promotions for distribution to the network's stations: a standard version incorporating airtimes based on their broadcast in the Eastern/Central or Pacific/Mountain time zones, depending on the feed used by the station (as those seen during network commercial breaks), and versions with "clean" end tags to allow stations to include local airtime and station information through graphical insertion and verbal continuity by station promotional announcers during the program logo graphic or prime time menu. This practice – which differs from that long used by ABC, NBC and CBS, which only allow their stations to insert logos within their network promotions – was also later adopted by The WB and UPN (and their successors The CW, and to a lesser extent, MyNetworkTV) for use by their affiliated stations. A third cut of these promos exists for national program advertising carried by cable networks (including Fox's sister cable networks), where the wording 'check local listings' is placed in the end tag.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox is the only broadcast network that currently carries adult animated comedies. This started with "The Simpsons" in 1989. This is followed up by "King of the Hill" in 1997 (until 2009, with the last remaining six episodes airing on syndication, but is set to return to Hulu for new episodes in 2023), "Family Guy" (which was cancelled twice until being picked up by Adult Swim for reruns and was brought back by the network in 2005 thanks to home video sales) and "Futurama" in 1999 (until 2003 when it was also picked up by Adult Swim only to be purchased by Comedy Central for new episodes between 2008 and 2013 and is also set to return for new episodes on Hulu in 2023), "American Dad!" in 2005 (until 2014 when TBS picked up the series), "The Cleveland Show" in 2009, "Bob's Burgers" in 2011, "Duncanville" in 2020 and "The Great North" and "Housebroken" in 2021. Although the network also aired other adult animated shows like "The Critic", "The PJs", "Sit Down, Shut Up", "Allen Gregory", "Napoleon Dynamite", "Bordertown", "Son of Zorn" (the network's only live-action/animated hybrid sitcom) and "Bless the Harts", but with no success. While ABC, CBS, and NBC have tried to copy the success of Fox with adult animated shows, none were successful.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Within Fox's station body, the quantity of locally produced news programming varies considerably compared to the owned-and-operated and affiliated stations of ABC, NBC, and CBS (which typically carry at least 4½ hours of local newscasts on weekdays and one hour on weekends, which are usually spread across morning, midday, early or late evening timeslots). At minimum, most Fox stations run a late-evening newscast following the network's prime time lineup (at 10:00 p.m. in the Eastern and Pacific, and 9:00 p.m. in the Central and Mountain Time Zones), which typically run 30 minutes to one hour in length; besides the fact that the network's stations have more latitude to air an earlier late-evening newscast since Fox does not program that hour, this stems from the fact that several of its charter stations were already airing prime time newscasts as independent stations prior to the network's launch (such as New York City O&O WNYW, which debuted its 10:00 p.m. newscast in March 1967). Most Fox stations also carry a weekday morning newscast of one to three hours in length at 7:00 a.m., as a local alternative to the national morning news programs provided by the "Big Three" networks (though mainly in the case of Fox stations that have a news operation and in a few cases, via simulcasts with ABC-, NBC- and CBS-affiliated stations that operate a Fox affiliate, this is often part of a morning news block that runs for four to six hours on average).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox has fewer stations that have an independent news operation than those of ABC, NBC and CBS; , 70 of Fox's 236 stations (including all 18 owned-and-operated stations) maintain in-house news departments (compared to roughly – of the stations of each of the three other major broadcast networks, whose newscasts are either produced in-house or in conjunction with another station). WJW (channel 8) in Cleveland (which was owned by the network from 1997 to 2008) and WXIN (channel 59) in Indianapolis have the highest weekly total of news programming hours among Fox's stations, at 65½ hours.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Most Fox stations that run a news operation utilize a newscast-intensive scheduling format that is very similar to an ABC-, NBC-, or CBS-affiliated station which in many cases, may incorporate midday or early-evening newscasts, the latter of which is often extended by a half-hour to compete with the national evening newscasts provided by the "Big Three" networks; some Fox stations except for those owned by Fox Television Stations and those formerly owned by Tribune Broadcasting air their early-evening newscasts only on Monday through Friday nights, due to frequent sports event overruns into that daypart on weekends. The first Fox station to adopt such a scheduling format was WSVN in Miami; upon affiliating with the network in January 1989, WSVN retained its existing morning, midday and early evening newscasts, while moving its late newscast from 11:00 p.m. to 10:00 p.m. and expanding it to one hour (the station later relaunched an 11:00 p.m. newscast in 1995), and expanding its weekday morning newscast by two hours. This type of format was later adopted by the former major network stations that switched to Fox between 1994 and 1996, especially those affected by New World and Burnham Broadcasting affiliation deals. Many Fox stations with upstart news departments often do not run a full slate of newscasts initially, usually carrying only a prime time newscast at first, before gradually adding other newscasts over time.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In many small to mid-sized markets (largely those ranked outside the 50 largest Nielsen-designated television markets), production of the local Fox affiliate's newscasts is outsourced to an NBC, ABC, or CBS station – either due to insufficient funds or studio space for a news department or in most cases, as a byproduct of the station being operated through a legal duopoly or a management agreement with a major network affiliate (such as with Cunningham Broadcasting-owned WEMT (channel 39) in Greeneville, Tennessee, which has its newscasts produced by NBC affiliate WCYB-TV (channel 5) through a local marketing agreement with Sinclair Broadcast Group). Fox affiliates that outsource their news production to a major-network affiliate often carry a lesser amount of news programming than is possible with an affiliate with a standalone news department due to the contracting station's preference to avoid having the Fox station's newscasts compete against their own in common timeslots (differing from outsourcing agreements between two same-market ABC, CBS, or NBC affiliates in certain areas, in which both stations may simulcast newscasts in the same timeslots). The lone exceptions to this rule currently are El Paso, Texas affiliate KFOX-TV (channel 14) and WXIN, which respectively began producing newscasts for their CBS-affiliated duopoly partners using resources from their existing news departments in September 2014 (when new sister stations KFOX and KDBC-TV (channel 4) consolidated their operations into a single facility) and January 2015 (when WXIN sister WTTV (channel 4) affiliated with CBS), with the Fox stations maintaining the same amount of news programming that they did beforehand. Another exception is KNPN-LD (channel 26) in St. Joseph, Missouri, which has been the smallest Fox affiliate by market size with an in-house news operation since the station's July 2012 sign-on; News-Press & Gazette Company expanded production of KNPN's newscasts to its sister flagship stations, KNPG-LD (channel 21) and KCJO-LD (channel 30), when they respectively joined NBC and CBS in November 2016 and June 2017, though the former also maintained roughly the same amount of news programming before the conversions (KNPN airs morning, midday and early evening newscasts on weekdays and a nightly late evening newscast; all three stations simulcast the first 90 minutes of the morning newscast, while the remainder of KNPN's newscasts air in separate time slots from those seen on KNPG and KCJO).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: WPGH-TV (channel 53) in Pittsburgh is the largest Fox station by Nielsen market ranking (at #23) that outsources its news programming; NBC affiliate WPXI (channel 11; owned by Cox Media Group) has produced the station's 10:00 p.m. newscast since 2006, when WPGH shut down its news department following the closure of owner Sinclair Broadcast Group's News Central division. A few Fox affiliates only air syndicated programming in time periods where newscasts would air on other major network stations. The largest Fox station by market size that does not carry news programming is WSYT (channel 68) in Syracuse, New York (which discontinued a 10:00 p.m. newscast produced by CBS affiliate WTVH (channel 5) in 2006). In Dayton, Ohio, Sinclair Broadcast Group took the unusual step in August 2015 of adopting "Fox 45 News" as its universal brand for its news operation in that market, making it appear as if the news department was operated by WRGT-TV, even though it actually belongs to WRGT's virtual duopoly partner, ABC affiliate WKEF, which Sinclair owns outright (newscasts on WKEF would be branded as ""Fox 45 News on ABC22""); Sinclair utilized WRGT over WKEF due to the latter's perennial "also-ran" reputation in the market in regards to their newscast ratings. WRGT and WKEF have since switched to a new branding model in the summer of 2019 involving a 24/7 web news service known as "Dayton 24/7 Now", and in 2021, WRGT's Fox affiliation moved to WKEF's second subchannel (along with a number of other Sinclair or related companies in several other markets), as Sinclair consolidated its network affiliations onto one station in a market to address regulatory concerns.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox maintains several video on demand venues for viewers to watch the network's programming, including a traditional VOD service called Fox on Demand, which is carried on most traditional cable, satellite, streaming, and telecom providers. Fox also streams most of its programming on the streaming video service Hulu, along with traditional streaming via the network's Full Episode portal on Fox.com. The network's mobile and digital media player app is branded as FOXNOW, and features access to a live stream of the network's primetime and sports programming (though not local and syndicated programming for affiliates not owned by the network), along with full-time live streams of their owned cable networks with TV Everywhere authentication through authorized television providers.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The most recent episodes of the network's shows are usually made available on the Fox on Demand television service the day after their original broadcast. In addition, fast forwarding capabilities are disabled while viewing content (a commonality for video-on-demand television services provided by the U.S. broadcast networks) and the program's original advertisements that aired during the initial broadcast are included for a week after becoming available on the service, before being replaced by direct response advertising thereafter. Due to restrictions put in place by the network in January 2012 to encourage live or same-week DVR viewing via traditional and cable on demand methods, Hulu and Fox.com both impose an eight-day delay for most viewers to access the most recent episode of any Fox program, restricting day-after-air streaming of its shows on both services to subscribers of certain pay television providers (such as Dish Network and Verizon FiOS) using an ISP account through agreements made with Fox, along with Hulu's free service with advertisements on Yahoo! Stream; however, Hulu offers newer episodes of Fox programs the day after their original broadcast to paid subscribers requiring only a user-determined login.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In March 2020, Fox began to stream the full schedule of all of their owned Fox Television Stations through FoxNow. The following month, Fox acquired the ad-supported streaming service Tubi. The service primarily offers content and channels licensed from third-party studios, but later began to add episodes of Fox Entertainment original series (such as "The Masked Singer") a week after their television premiere.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox began broadcasting its programming in 720p high definition on September 12, 2004, with that day's slate of NFC football games during week one of the 2004 NFL season. Until March 14, 2016, the network did not display an on-screen logo graphic on the bottom-right corner of the screen, outside a ten-second sweep of a "Fox HD" promotional logo (which until the end of 2010, also featured a sponsor tag for DirecTV); instead a trigger in Fox's program delivery system at each station displayed the logo bug of an owned-and-operated or affiliate station in the right-hand corner of the 16:9 screen frame, which disappeared during commercial breaks (the station logo bug would still be triggered even if Fox programming was pre-empted locally due to breaking news, severe weather coverage or special programming, though some stations, such as WGGB-DT2 in Springfield, Massachusetts, did not display a logo or substitute only the "FOX" logo alone). However, network or affiliate bugs are not displayed during Fox Sports programming. During some high-profile or live programs such as "American Idol" and "So You Think You Can Dance", however, Fox forwent the affiliate's logo and displayed its network logo instead, mainly for promotional consideration due to fair use of clips from each series by other media outlets (such as news programs, talk shows, and review and satirical programs that rely on clip content); until 2014, the bug was placed in the safe area. The Sunday political talk program "Fox News Sunday" displayed the "Fox HD" logo at all times for both that reason and because of many stations airing the program on tape delay later in the morning. Beginning on March 14, 2016, the standard Fox logo with hashtag is now used on all programming, with the station bug flashed for a few moments at the start of a program or coming out of commercial, as is traditionally done with ABC, CBS and NBC stations. In addition, the Fox HD bug was discontinued; although it was still used on "Fox News Sunday" until around late 2019-early 2020.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: On some Fox programs, a hashtag rests above the affiliate's logo (for example, or "#bones") to provide viewers reference to the network's official Twitter search tag to find or start discussions during the program being broadcast. In April 2012, additional tags relating to plot points in a given episode (for instance, the "#saturdaynightGLEEver" tag for an April 2012 episode of "Glee" of that same title) began to also be promoted in this space to both add additional trending topics and spread out more conversations on Twitter. In cases where the Fox bug appears instead of the station's logo bug, the Twitter hashtag is directly above the Fox logo in the safe area. Fox's coverage of the World Series started broadcasting in HD with Game 1 of the 2002 World Series.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: During the transitional period from analog to digital television, Fox was the only commercial television network in the U.S. to air programs in widescreen that were not available in HD (which were identified as being presented in "Fox High Resolution Widescreen" from 2001 to 2006). Prior to the launch of its HD feed, some sitcoms and drama series were presented in widescreen standard-definition, with reality, talk and game shows ("American Idol" being the first major exception, as it began to be presented in high definition in 2008) later being presented only in widescreen enhanced definition. The children's sports program "This Week in Baseball" began airing in widescreen in 2009, while "Fox News Sunday" converted to HD when Fox News Channel began operating from its new high-definition facilities in November 2008 (prior to Fox News Channel's conversion to a unified widescreen presentation on both its high-definition and standard-definition feeds in September 2010, it was the final Fox News program to structure its graphics and camera positions for the 4:3 safe area). "MADtv" was produced to air only in 4:3 until September 2008, likely due to a combination of stations tape-delaying the program and therefore being unable to offer it via the live network feed in 16:9, and the show's producers not making the switch to the format. The final Fox show to convert to HD was "Family Guy" beginning with its September 26, 2010, episode; all programming provided by Fox is now broadcast in widescreen "and" in high definition , and in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Fox is unique among U.S. broadcasters as it distributes its HD feed over satellite to the network's affiliates as an MPEG transport stream intended to be delivered bit-for-bit for broadcast transmission. During network programming hours, local commercials are inserted over the feed using a transport stream splicer. Affiliates of most other networks decode compressed satellite network video feeds and then re-encode them for final over-the-air transmission.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: After Fox began broadcasting its sports programming with graphics optimized for 16:9 displays rather than the 4:3 safe area in late July 2010, the network asked cable and satellite providers to comply and use the #10 Active Format Description flag it now disseminates over Fox programming, which displays content natively broadcast in 16:9 in a letterboxed format suitable for 4:3 television screens to allow any optimized graphical elements to be displayed in full. Subsequently, a number of Fox O&Os and affiliates also began disseminating the AFD #10 flag over local news and syndicated programs that the stations broadcast in HD, and have incorporated graphical elements seen during local programs and on-air promos (as well as logo bugs) optimized for the letter boxed presentation.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: During the early 1990s, Fox began having its stations use a branding structure using a combination of the "Fox" name and the station's channel number, often followed by the licensed call letters (for instance, WNYW in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C. and WAGA-TV in Atlanta, Georgia, are all branded as "Fox 5"). By the mid-to-late 1990s, stations minimized their call letters to be just barely readable while still in compliance with FCC identification requirements. This marked the start of the trend for other networks to apply such naming schemes.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The branding scheme has varied in some markets, with some Fox stations using a city or regional name within the branding instead of the channel number (for example, Chicago owned-and-operated station WFLD branded as "Fox Chicago" from 1997 to 2012 and Philadelphia O&O WTXF-TV branded as "Fox Philadelphia" from 1995 to 2003); a few of the network's stations also minimized use of the "Fox" name, opting to use their call letters or a more generic branding (WSVN in Miami, which has branded as "WSVN 7" for general use and "(Channel) 7 News" for its newscasts since it joined the network in January 1989; KHON-TV (channel 2) in Honolulu, which changed its general branding from "Fox 2" to "KHON 2" in 2003; WDRB in Louisville, Kentucky, which dropped its "Fox 41" brand in favor of branding by its call letters in September 2011; and KVRR (channel 15) in Fargo, North Dakota, which dropped the generic "Fox" branding it used in part due to its network of repeater stations throughout eastern North Dakota in favor of branding by its calls in May 2015). Similarly, most of the stations that switched to Fox as a result of its 1994 affiliation deal with New World Communications retained their Big Three-era branding for general or news purposes (with a few exceptions such as WJW in Cleveland, which dropped its CBS-era "TV8" and "Newscenter 8" brands in 1995, in favor of "Fox is eiht" as a general brand and "eiht is News" as the title for its newscasts; likewise that same year, KDFW in Dallas/Fort Worth re-branded itself as "Fox 4 Texas" after its newscast name of "News 4 Texas" before shortening its ID to simply "Fox 4" in 1996 and changing its newscast name to "Fox 4 News", both in use since then), before conforming to Fox's station branding conventions when Fox Television Stations acquired New World in 1997.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: A particularly unique situation was with KTVU (channel 2) in Oakland-San Francisco, which as a Fox affiliate under longtime owner Cox Media Group, retained its perennial "Channel 2" brand (with limited references as "Fox Channel 2" by the early 1990s). In 1996, the station rebranded as "KTVU Fox 2" for general purposes (adding the Fox logo on the underside of the top line of its heritage "Circle Laser 2" logo as well), while retaining ""(KTVU) Channel 2 News"" as the branding for its newscasts. Fox Television Stations (which traded WFXT in Boston and WHBQ-TV (channel 13) in Memphis station to Cox in 2014, in exchange for KTVU and sister station KICU-TV) instituted the "KTVU Fox 2" branding full-time in February 2015, retaining the "Circle Laser 2" both within the group's standardized "boxkite" logo and in an alternate version (which would become the primary logo through its de-emphasis of the O&O standardization later that year) placed next to a prominent Fox wordmark. Another situation also includes another Fox station KCPQ in Seattle, Washington, which as a Fox affiliate under Tribune Media and Nexstar Media Group, also retained the "Q13 Fox" name as well as the "Q13 News" name for its newscast until KCPQ dropped the Q13 moniker and rebranded itself to "Fox 13" in September 2021, conforming with the branding of other Fox O&O stations after its acquisition by Fox.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Starting in 2006, more standardization of the O&Os began to take place both on-air and online. All of the network's O&Os began adopting an on-air look more closely aligned with the Fox News Channel, which included a standardized red, white and blue boxkite-style logo augmented by red pillars (which rotated on-air, particularly in the logo bugs seen during newscasts). After News Corporation's acquisition of the social networking site Myspace (which it sold in June 2011 to a consortium that included singer Justin Timberlake among its backers), some Fox O&Os launched websites with identical layouts and similar URL domains under the "MyFox" scheme (such as MyFoxDC.com for WTTG). On-air usage of the FNC-inspired logos was reduced in August 2012 (when a new standardized graphics package was implemented, with wordmark bugs being used during newscasts and other programming), while several of the O&Os ceased using the "MyFox" domains in 2015; the use of the Fox News Channel boxkite logos in all elements, along with explicit connections with the latter, was drastically reduced since the July 2016 resignation of Roger Ailes from Fox for a more traditional and simpler 'call-channel number' horizontal wordmark style which is more flexible with both traditional television and smaller mobile screens. In 2017, Fox's local newscast music composer, Stephen Arnold Music, released a new news music package, "Beyond", that uses none of the Fox News Channel sonic elements associated with the previous Fox O&O music package, and it has rolled out across all Fox O&O local news operations.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: As of 2017, Fox O&O's with a sister MyNetworkTV station in that market have also begun to play down that network, with many MyNetworkTV O&O's now taking on the branding of "Fox (channel number) Plus/More,", etc., suggesting them as an extension of their higher-profile sister Fox station. Several of these stations now also carry extended newscasts or rebroadcasts of earlier newscasts from their sister stations during primetime, pushing MyNetworkTV's schedule to a late night offering.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: When Fox launched on October 9, 1986, as Fox Broadcasting Company, it used a logo with three squares containing the network's initials (FBC) similar to BBC's current logo from 1997–present in the UK. Below it was a rectangle with the network's full name in the same font. This logo is mostly the same color as the ITV's old logo from 1998 to 2004 in the UK, which was used during the network's first six months in existence and was primarily featured as a network identification slide at the beginning of "The Late Show with Joan Rivers". On April 5, 1987, when the network inaugurated its prime time programming, a more familiar logo based on 20th Century Fox's signature logo design was introduced, featuring just the capitalized "FOX" name alongside the familiar trademark searchlights and double-pane platform (Fox's owned-and-operated stations used a variant for station identifications from 1987 to 1989, which incorporated both an "O" and searchlight in negative space, the latter of which intersected the "X" and panes within the otherwise translucent yellow/gold logo; until as late as the mid-1990s, some Fox affiliates that did not license the regulation network logo, or which used CGI to output their station logos with local production houses which tried to emulate the parent network's logo as close as possible, used those that imitated the 20th Century Fox-inspired design in their station logos).


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: In September 1993, the familiar logo was given a more "hip" makeover, with the "FOX" wordmark overhauled into its current proprietary logotype and the angle changed, removing the tilting (the 1987 logo remained in use during the 1993–94 season in print advertisements featured in "TV Guide" and other television listings magazines). Starting with the introduction of this logo, the network began displaying an on-screen bug within its programs on the lower right-hand corner of the screen (initially for one minute at the start of each program segment or act, eventually being displayed throughout the program outside commercial breaks, before reverting to the former display format regularly upon the 2009 digital transition). The "O" character also underwent a makeover, acquiring its trademark pillar-like bowl, which has since become a major focal point for the logo and Fox advertising in lieu of the searchlight motif. The "O" is alternately utilized as a zero character in the station logo of several Fox affiliates which have a tens channel location, including Phoenix's channel 10, KSAZ-TV, and Sacramento affiliate KTXL-TV, channel 40.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Another revised logo was introduced for the 1995–96 television season, removing the searchlights, but retaining the two lower panes and adding a third pane atop the logotype. A variant of the original 1993 design was implemented in 1996, excluding the panes underneath the network name, but restoring the searchlights placed behind the "F" and "X" in the Fox wordmark.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The current version of the logo was introduced in 1999, removing the searchlights completely and switching the logo exclusively to a wordmark design. Despite this, the searchlight theme remained an integral part of 21st Century Fox's branding efforts; they are still incorporated into Fox News Channel's logo, and the universal station logo introduced in 2006 by Fox's owned-and-operated stations – which were retained by the seven former O&Os that Fox Television Stations sold in 2008 to Local TV and had spread to several Fox stations owned by Tribune Broadcasting (including those it acquired through the company's 2013 merger with Local TV; the logo introduced by the O&Os was modified for Tribune's Fox affiliates in 2012 to feature only one searchlight as part of the company's graphical standardizations for those stations) and certain other Fox affiliates not owned or operated by either company. The 1996–99 searchlight logo is still used within the logos of a small number of Fox affiliates; the searchlights continued to be featured in the logo of sister channel FX until a rebranding effort in 2008. The screen bug may have been used from 1999 to 2014; when the network upgraded to high-definition, the watermark placement remained at the 480i format. Until March 14, 2016, they didn't display the on-screen bug, just the hashtag missing the Fox bug, used on some affiliates.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: For the 2019–20 season, Fox implemented branding elements by Trollbäck + Company, which slightly tweaked the existing wordmark to make it thicker, and introduced an abstract version of the wordmark whose shapes are incorporated into advertising and on-air branding elements (including an animation of the abstract shapes morphing into the main Fox logo). The original wordmark was still used on affiliates and O&Os until they began adopting the 2019 logo throughout 2020, 2021, and 2022.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: Controversy surrounded the network in 2002 and 2003 over profanity, expressed respectively by Cher and Nicole Richie, aired live during Fox's broadcast of the Billboard Music Awards on its affiliates in the Eastern and Central Time Zones despite the use of five-second audio delays; the indecent material was edited out when the program was broadcast in other time zones from the Mountain Time Zone westward. Both of the obscene instances were condemned by the Parents Television Council, and named by them among the worst instances on television from 2001 to 2004. PTC members filed tens of thousands of complaints to the Federal Communications Commission regarding the broadcasts. A subsequent apology made by Fox representatives was labeled a "sham" by PTC president L. Brent Bozell III, who argued that the network could have easily used an audio delay to edit out the obscene language. As the FCC was investigating the broadcasts, in 2004, Fox announced that it would begin extending live broadcast delays to five minutes from its standard five or ten seconds to more easily be able to edit out obscenities uttered over the air. In June 2007, in the case "Federal Communications Commission v. Fox Television Stations", the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the FCC could not issue indecency fines against Fox because it does not have the authority to fine broadcasters for fleeting expletives, such as in the case of the Billboard Awards. The FCC eventually decided to appeal the Second Circuit Court's finding. The U.S. Supreme Court granted certiorari and oral arguments in FCC v. Fox, et al., began November 4, 2008.


title: Fox Broadcasting Company

text: The Parents Television Council has also criticized many popular Fox shows for perceived indecent content, such as "American Dad!", "Arrested Development", "The Simpsons", "Family Guy", "Hell's Kitchen", "Married... with Children", "Prison Break" and "That '70s Show". The Council sometimes has gone even as far as to file complaints with the Federal Communications Commission regarding indecent content within Fox programming, having done so for "That '70s Show" and "Married by America", having successfully been able to get the FCC to fine the network nearly $1 million for its airing of the latter program. That fine was reduced to $91,000 in January 2009 after an appeal of the fine by Fox was granted as a result of its earlier discovery that the FCC originally claimed to have received 159 complaints regarding the content in "Married by America"; it later admitted to only receiving 90, which came from only 23 people. A study of the complaints by blogger Jeff Jarvis deduced that all but two were virtually identical to each other, meaning that the $1.2 million judgment was based on original complaints written by a total of only three people.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: A Ponzi scheme (, ) is a form of fraud that lures investors and pays profits to earlier investors with funds from more recent investors. Named after Italian businessman Charles Ponzi, the scheme leads victims to believe that profits are coming from legitimate business activity (e.g., product sales or successful investments), and they remain unaware that other investors are the source of funds. A Ponzi scheme can maintain the illusion of a sustainable business as long as new investors contribute new funds, and as long as most of the investors do not demand full repayment and still believe in the non-existent assets they are purported to own.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Some of the first recorded incidents to meet the modern definition of the Ponzi scheme were carried out from 1869 to 1872 by Adele Spitzeder in Germany and by Sarah Howe in the United States in the 1880s through the "Ladies' Deposit". Howe offered a solely female clientele an 8% monthly interest rate and then stole the money that the women had invested. She was eventually discovered and served three years in prison. The Ponzi scheme was also previously described in novels; Charles Dickens's 1844 novel "Martin Chuzzlewit" and his 1857 novel "Little Dorrit" both feature such a scheme.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: In the 1920s, Charles Ponzi carried out this scheme and became well known throughout the United States because of the huge amount of money that he took in. His original scheme was based on the legitimate arbitrage of international reply coupons for postage stamps, but he soon began diverting new investors' money to make payments to earlier investors and to himself. Unlike earlier similar schemes, Ponzi's gained considerable press coverage both within the United States and internationally both while it was being perpetrated and after it collapsed – this notoriety eventually led to the type of scheme being named after him.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: In a Ponzi scheme, a con artist offers investments that promise very high returns with little or no risk to their victims. The returns are said to originate from a business or a secret idea run by the con artist. In reality, the business does not exist or the idea does not work. The con artist pays the high returns promised to their earlier investors by using the money obtained from later investors. Instead of engaging in a legitimate business activity, the con artist attempts to attract new investors to make the payments that were promised to earlier investors. The operator of the scheme also diverts clients' funds for the operator's personal use.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: With little or no legitimate earnings, Ponzi schemes require a constant flow of new money to survive. When it becomes hard to recruit new investors, or when large numbers of existing investors cash out, these schemes collapse. As a result, most investors end up losing all or much of the money they invested. In some cases, the operator of the scheme may simply disappear with the money.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: According to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), many Ponzi schemes share characteristics that should be "red flags" for investors.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Typically, Ponzi schemes require an initial investment and promise above-average returns. They use vague verbal guises such as "hedge futures trading", "high-yield investment programs", or "offshore investment" to describe their income strategy. It is common for the operator to take advantage of a lack of investor knowledge or competence, or sometimes claim to use a proprietary, secret investment strategy to avoid giving information about the scheme.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: The basic premise of a Ponzi scheme is "to rob Peter to pay Paul". Initially, the operator pays high returns to attract investors and entice current investors to invest more money. When other investors begin to participate, a cascade effect begins. The schemer pays a "return" to initial investors from the investments of new participants, rather than from genuine profits.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Often, high returns encourage investors to leave their money in the scheme, so that the operator does not actually have to pay very much to investors. The operator simply sends statements showing how much they have earned, which maintains the deception that the scheme is an investment with high returns. Investors within a Ponzi scheme may face difficulties when trying to get their money out of the investment.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Operators also try to minimize withdrawals by offering new plans to investors where money cannot be withdrawn for a certain period of time in exchange for higher returns. The operator sees new cash flows as investors cannot transfer money. If a few investors do wish to withdraw their money in accordance with the terms allowed, their requests are usually promptly processed, which gives the illusion to all other investors that the fund is solvent and financially sound.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Ponzi schemes sometimes begin as legitimate investment vehicles, such as hedge funds that can easily degenerate into a Ponzi-type scheme if they unexpectedly lose money or fail to legitimately earn the returns expected. The operators fabricate false returns or produce fraudulent audit reports instead of admitting their failure to meet expectations, and the operation is then considered a Ponzi scheme.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: A wide variety of investment vehicles and strategies, typically legitimate, have become the basis of Ponzi schemes. For instance, Allen Stanford used bank certificates of deposit to defraud tens of thousands of people. Certificates of deposit are usually low-risk and insured instruments, but the Stanford certificates of deposit were fraudulent.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Theoretically, it is possible for certain Ponzi schemes to ultimately "succeed" financially, at least so long as a Ponzi scheme was not what the promoters were initially intending to operate. For example, a failing hedge fund reporting fraudulent returns could conceivably "make good" its reported numbers, for example by making a successful high-risk investment. Moreover, if the operators of such a scheme are facing the likelihood of imminent collapse accompanied by criminal charges, they may see little additional "risk" to themselves in attempting to cover their tracks by engaging in further illegal acts to try and make good the shortfall (for example, by engaging in insider trading). Especially with investment vehicles like hedge funds that are regulated and monitored less heavily than other investment vehicles such as mutual funds, in the absence of a whistleblower or accompanying illegal acts, any fraudulent content in reports is often difficult to detect unless and until the investment vehicles ultimately collapse.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Typically, however, if a Ponzi scheme is not stopped by authorities it usually falls apart for one or more of the following reasons:


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Sometimes, two or more of the aforementioned factors may be at play. For example, news of a police investigation into a Ponzi scheme may cause investors to immediately demand their money, and in turn cause the promoters to flee the jurisdiction sooner than planned (assuming they intended to eventually abscond in the first place), thus causing the scheme to collapse much faster than it ultimately would have been closed down by the police if their investigation had simply been permitted to run its course.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Actual losses are extremely difficult to calculate. The amounts that investors thought they had were never attainable in the first place. The wide gap between "money in" and "fictitious gains" make it virtually impossible to know how much was lost in any Ponzi scheme.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: A pyramid scheme is a form of fraud similar in some ways to a Ponzi scheme, relying as it does on a mistaken belief in a nonexistent financial reality, including the hope of an extremely high rate of return. However, several characteristics distinguish these schemes from Ponzi schemes:


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Cryptocurrencies have been employed by scammers attempting a new generation of Ponzi schemes. For example, misuse of initial coin offerings, or "ICOs", has been one such method, known as ""smart Ponzis"" per the "Financial Times". The novelty of ICOs means that there is currently a lack of regulatory clarity on the classification of these financial devices, allowing scammers wide leeway to develop Ponzi schemes using these pseudo-assets. Also, the pseudonymity of cryptocurrency transactions can make it much more difficult to identify and take legal action (whether civil or criminal) against perpetrators. The May 2022 collapse of TerraUSD, a stablecoin propped up by a complex algorithmic mechanism offering 20% yields, was described as "Ponzinomics" by "Wired". In September 2022, Jamie Dimon, CEO of JPMorgan, described cryptocurrencies as "Decentralised Ponzi Schemes".


title: Ponzi scheme

text: Economic bubbles are also similar to a Ponzi scheme in that one participant gets paid by contributions from a subsequent participant until inevitable collapse. A bubble involves ever-rising prices in an open market (for example stock, housing, cryptocurrency, tulip bulbs, or the Mississippi Company) where prices rise because buyers bid more, and buyers bid more because prices are rising. Bubbles are often said to be based on the "greater fool" theory. As with the Ponzi scheme, the price exceeds the intrinsic value of the item, but unlike the Ponzi scheme:


title: Ponzi scheme

text: A Ponzi scheme which ultimately terminates with the operator absconding is similar to an exit scam. The main difference is that an exit scam does not involve any sort of investment vehicle with the accompanying promised returns. Instead, exit scammers either accept payment for product which they never ship (usually after gaining a reputation for reliably shipping product) or steal funds held in escrow on behalf of third parties (the latter often involves the operators of illegal darknet markets that facilitate the sale of illicit goods and services).


title: Ponzi scheme

text: The term "ponzi finance" generally designates non-sustainable patterns of finance, such as borrowers who can only meet their debt commitment if they continuously obtain new sources of financing, often at an accelerating pace and/or ever-increasing interest rates until the borrower cannot secure more financing at any interest rate and becomes insolvent. The term was first coined by economist Hyman Minsky.


title: Ponzi scheme

text: In economics, the term "ponzi game" designates a hypothesis where a government continuously defers the repayment of its public debt by issuing new debt: each time its existing debt arrives at maturity, it borrows funds from new and/or existing lenders in order to repay its existing debt.


title: Scott Eastwood

text: Scott Eastwood (born Scott Clinton Reeves; March 21, 1986) is an American actor. His notable films are "Flags of Our Fathers" (2006), "Gran Torino" (2008), "Invictus" (2009), "The Forger" (2012), "Trouble with the Curve" (2012), "Texas Chainsaw" (2013), "Fury" (2014), "The Perfect Wave" (2014), "The Longest Ride" (2015), "Mercury Plains" (2016), "Suicide Squad" (2016), "Snowden" (2016), "Walk of Fame" (2017), "The Fate of the Furious" (2017), "Overdrive" (2017), "Pacific Rim Uprising" (2018), "The Outpost" (2020), "Wrath of Man" (2021) and "Dangerous" (2021). He is the son of actor and filmmaker Clint Eastwood.


title: Scott Eastwood

text: Scott Clinton Reeves was born on March 21, 1986, at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula in Monterey, California. He is the son of actor-director Clint Eastwood and flight attendant Jacelyn Reeves. He has a younger sister named Kathryn who was born two years after him in 1988, and six known paternal half-siblings: Laurie (b. 1954), Kimber (b. 1964), Kyle (b. 1968), Alison (b. 1972), Francesca (b. 1993) and Morgan (b. 1996). Eastwood was raised in Carmel-by-the-Sea until age ten, after which he moved with his mother to Hawaii. He spent four years in Hawaii before returning to California, where he graduated from Carmel High School. He attended Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, where he graduated with a communications degree in 2008.


title: Scott Eastwood

text: Eastwood began his career by using his given last name to avoid nepotism, although there is another actor named Scott Reeves. "I've auditioned for pretty much every one of my father's movies", he said in 2015, stating that he was rejected for the Clint Eastwood-directed "American Sniper". He briefly appeared in his father's 2008 film "Gran Torino", and played Joel Stransky in "Invictus".


title: Scott Eastwood

text: In April 2010, Eastwood played the lead role in "Enter Nowhere", had a supporting role in David Ayer's 2014 film "Fury", appeared in the 2015 music video for Taylor Swift's "Wildest Dreams", and starred alongside Britt Robertson in the 2015 film adaptation of Nicholas Sparks' novel "The Longest Ride".


title: Scott Eastwood

text: In 2016, Eastwood played Lieutenant GQ Edwards in the film "Suicide Squad", an adaptation of the DC Comics series. Also that year, he starred alongside Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Shailene Woodley in the biographical drama film "Snowden", directed by Oliver Stone, which was released in September.


title: Scott Eastwood

text: In 2017, he played a special agent in the action film "The Fate of the Furious", and starred in "Overdrive", a thriller film which was shot in Paris and Marseille. In 2018, he starred as Nate Lambert in the science fiction follow-up "Pacific Rim Uprising".


title: Scott Eastwood

text: In August 2016, Scott opened up to the media about the death of his former girlfriend, Jewel Brangman, who was killed on September 7, 2014, by a faulty airbag during a minor car accident.


title: Scott Eastwood

text: Eastwood has opened up about his experiences in Hollywood and compared it to being "in a circus". He stated that "It's an amazing circus at times, but living on the road, I think it would be tough. I don't have a family yet, but I want that someday, and I think about what that would look like with kids and being away from them. That worries me."


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Venom is a 2018 American superhero film featuring the Marvel Comics character of the same name, produced by Columbia Pictures in association with Marvel and Tencent Pictures, and distributed by Sony Pictures Releasing. It is the first film in Sony's Spider-Man Universe (SSU) and is directed by Ruben Fleischer from a screenplay by Jeff Pinkner, Scott Rosenberg, and Kelly Marcel. It stars Tom Hardy as Eddie Brock and Venom alongside Michelle Williams, Riz Ahmed, Scott Haze, and Reid Scott. In the film, struggling journalist Brock gains superpowers after becoming the host of an alien symbiote, Venom, whose species plans to invade Earth.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: After Venom's appearance in "Spider-Man 3" (2007), Sony attempted to develop a spin-off film based on the character but it did not move forward due to issues with Sony's ongoing Spider-Man franchise. In March 2016, work began on a new version that would start a new shared universe featuring the non-Spider-Man Marvel characters that the studio possessed film rights to. Sony also intended for "Venom" to share the world of the Marvel Cinematic Universe's "" (2017), but ultimately distanced the film from Spider-Man. In March 2017, Rosenberg and Pinkner were set to write, with Fleischer and Hardy added in May. Filming took place from October 2017 to January 2018 in Atlanta, New York City, and San Francisco. The film was primarily inspired by the comic book miniseries "" (1993) and the story arc "Planet of the Symbiotes" (1995).


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: "Venom" premiered at Regency Village Theater on October 1, 2018, and was theatrically released in the United States on October 5, 2018. The film received generally negative reviews from critics for its narrative, inconsistent tone, and lack of a stronger connection to its source material, while Hardy's performance received mixed reviews. The film was a box office success, becoming the seventh-highest-grossing film of 2018 with over $856 million worldwide and setting several box office records for an October release. A sequel, "", was released in October 2021, while a third film is in development.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: While exploring space for new habitable worlds, a probe belonging to the bio-engineering corporation Life Foundation discovers a comet covered in symbiotic lifeforms. The probe returns to Earth with four samples, but one escapes and causes the ship to crash in Malaysia. The Life Foundation recovers the other three and transports them to their research facility in San Francisco, where they discover that the symbiotes cannot survive without oxygen-breathing hosts, which often fatally reject the symbiosis. Investigative journalist Eddie Brock reads about these human trials in a classified document in the possession of his fiancée Anne Weying, an attorney preparing a lawsuit defense for the Life Foundation. Brock confronts Life Foundation CEO Carlton Drake about the trials, leading to Brock and Weying losing their jobs. Consequently, Weying ends their relationship.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Six months later, Drake's symbiosis trials are closer to success, though one of his symbiotes dies due to carelessness. Brock is approached by Dora Skirth, one of Drake's scientists, who disagrees with his methods and wants to expose him. She helps Brock break into the research facility to search for evidence, and he learns that an acquaintance of his, a homeless woman named Maria, is one of the test subjects. Brock attempts to rescue Maria, but the symbiote possessing her transfers to his body without him realizing, leaving her dead. Brock escapes and soon begins displaying strange symptoms. He reaches out to Weying for help, and her new boyfriend, Dr. Dan Lewis, discovers the symbiote on examining Brock. Drake exposes Skirth to the remaining captive symbiote, killing both. This leaves the symbiote inside Brock as the only known surviving specimen.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Drake sends mercenaries to retrieve the symbiote from Brock, but it manifests around his body as a monstrous creature that fights off the attackers. It later introduces itself to Brock as Venom and explains that the comet is searching for planets where the symbiotes can possess and devour the inhabitants. Venom offers to spare Brock if he helps the symbiotes achieve their goal, and Brock enjoys the superhuman attributes that the symbiote imbues him with. Brock breaks into his old workplace to turn in evidence of Drake's crimes but is surrounded by SWAT officers. Weying sees him transform to escape and takes Brock to Lewis's office, where they explain that the symbiote is rotting Brock's internal organs. Brock notes that the symbiote has two weaknesses: high-pitched noises and fire. Although Venom claims the organ damage can be reversed, Weying uses an MRI machine to separate him from Brock, whom Drake's men then capture.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Meanwhile, the fourth symbiote, Riot, makes its way from Malaysia to San Francisco by hopping from body to body. It bonds with Drake, who agrees to take Riot in a Life Foundation space probe to collect the rest of the symbiotes and bring them to Earth. Weying reluctantly bonds with Venom so they can free Brock. When Brock and Venom are bonded again, the latter promises that it has been convinced to help protect the Earth from his kind through its interactions with Brock, and the pair attempt to stop Riot and Drake with Weying's help. Venom damages the probe as it takes off, causing it to explode and kill both Riot and Drake. After the incident, Brock returns to journalism, while Weying believes Brock is no longer bonded to Venom after this, and that Venom also died in the explosion. However, the pair remain secretly bonded and set out to protect San Francisco by killing criminals.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: In a mid-credits scene, Brock is invited to interview incarcerated serial killer Cletus Kasady, who promises "carnage" when he escapes.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Additionally, Jenny Slate portrays Life Foundation scientist Dora Skirth, Melora Walters plays Maria, a homeless woman who briefly hosts Venom, and Chris O'Hara appears as John Jameson, an astronaut who briefly hosts Riot. Also appearing are Sam Medina as a thug that Venom confronts, Peggy Lu as convenience store owner Mrs. Chen, Michelle Lee as a Malaysian EMT who briefly hosts Riot, Sope Aluko and Wayne Péré as Life Foundation scientists, Scott Deckert as Brock's obnoxious neighbor, and Ron Cephas Jones, uncredited, as Brock's boss. Woody Harrelson plays Cletus Kasady in the mid-credits scene, while Stan Lee makes a cameo appearance as a dog-walker who talks to Brock. A clip from the animated film "" (2018), featuring Shameik Moore as Miles Morales and Jake Johnson as Peter B. Parker, is included after the credits.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: By 1997, David S. Goyer had written a script for a film featuring the Marvel Comics character Venom, which was to be produced by New Line Cinema. Dolph Lundgren was in talks to star in the film, which would feature the character Carnage as the main antagonist. The project did not move forward, and the rights to the character moved to Sony Pictures along with those for the character Spider-Man, of whom Venom is an antagonist in the comics. Eddie Brock, the alter-ego of Venom, would appear in Sony's "Spider-Man 3" (2007), with Topher Grace in the role. Grace was intended to only briefly appear as Brock, but became a major villain as both Brock and Venom because producer Avi Arad felt the series had relied too much on director Sam Raimi's personal favorite Spider-Man villains, and not characters that modern fans were actually interested in. Raimi had been hesitant to explore the character due to his "lack of humanity". Arad revealed plans for a spin-off film focused on Venom in July 2007.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Sony was actively developing "Venom" alongside direct sequels to "Spider-Man 3" by July 2008, hoping the character could "add longevity" to the franchise in a similar fashion to Wolverine in 20th Century Fox's "X-Men" films. Jacob Estes had written a script for the film, but the studio chose to seek out new writers for a different approach from that draft. Sony was also not yet convinced that Grace could serve as the lead actor in the film. That September, Sony hired Paul Wernick and Rhett Reese to write a new script, while industry insiders suggested that Grace should return for the spin-off "because the likeable actor could be a sympathetic evildoer", in response to Venom co-creator Todd McFarlane suggesting that a "Venom" film could not do well with a villain as the central character. Wernick and Reese had pitched an original story idea for the film to Sony, which Reese described as a "realistic, grounded, a little more dark take on the character". The pair then worked on an outline with Sony and Marvel, who "had specific rules about the villain and the backstory and stuff like that". They had completed a draft by April 2009, which included a role written specifically for Stan Lee, and featured a sequence where the Venom symbiote jumps "from body to body [through a city], and each person that it inhabits ends up becoming really violent and striking someone else and then it jumps to [them]".


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Wernick and Reese had turned in a second draft by September 2009, and Reese said that Sony was "pushing forward in whatever ways they push forward". A month later, Gary Ross, who was rewriting the script for "Spider-Man 4" at the time, was hired to also rewrite the "Venom" script, as well as direct, and produce alongside Arad. Grace was "not considered likely" to return to the role then, with the film starting "from the drawing board" and looking to make the villain "an antihero who becomes a defender of the innocent". In January 2010, Sony announced that the "Spider-Man" franchise would be rebooted after Raimi decided to no longer pursue direct sequels to "Spider-Man 3". By March 2012, Sony was still interested in a "Venom" film and wanted to use it to capitalize on the release of the first reboot film, "The Amazing Spider-Man". The studio was in negotiations with Josh Trank to direct after Ross had left the project to direct "The Hunger Games" (2012). Trank was brought on following the release of "Chronicle" (2012), his directorial debut. He and "Big Fan" (2009) director Robert Siegel pitched an R-rated "Venom" film in the vein of "The Mask" (1994), but producer Matt Tolmach disliked their treatment. In June, Arad and Tolmach discussed "Venom" connecting to "The Amazing Spider-Man", similar to the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) films crossing over in "The Avengers" (2012). Arad called it "an Eddie Brock story" only, but Tolmach added, "Hopefully all these worlds will live together in peace someday."


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: In December 2013, Sony revealed plans to use "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" (2014) to establish their own expanded universe based on the Marvel properties the studio had the film rights to, including Venom. Arad and Tolmach would produce the films as part of a franchise brain trust, with Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci, and Ed Solomon set to write the screenplay for "Venom", and Kurtzman set to direct. In April 2014, Arad and Tolmach said "Venom" would be released after "The Amazing Spider-Man 3"—which was set for release on May 27, 2016—but before "The Amazing Spider-Man 4". However, "The Amazing Spider-Man 2" underperformed, and, with Sony "under tremendous pressure to perform [that had them taking] a hard look at their most important franchise", the direction of the shared universe was rethought. "The Amazing Spider-Man 3" was pushed back to 2018, and the Venom film, now known as "Venom Carnage", was moved up to 2017. Kurtzman was still attached to direct, and write alongside Solomon. In February 2015, Sony and Marvel Studios announced a new partnership that would see Marvel Studios produce the next Spider-Man film for Sony, and integrate the character into their MCU. Sony still planned to produce the spin-off films on their own, but by November they were believed to have been canceled so Sony could focus on its new reboot with Marvel Studios.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: "Venom" was revived by Sony in March 2016, with Arad and Tolmach producing, and Dante Harper writing a new screenplay. The project was envisioned as a standalone film launching its own franchise, unrelated to Sony and Marvel Studios' new "Spider-Man" films. A year later, Sony gave the film an October 5, 2018, release date, and explained that Kurtzman was not involved with the new project. No new director had been signed, and Scott Rosenberg and Jeff Pinkner were now writing the screenplay. "Venom" was expected to begin a new shared universe independent of the MCU, and was initially aiming for an R-rating on a smaller budget, inspired by 20th Century Fox's success doing so with the "X-Men" films "Deadpool" (2016) and "Logan" (2017). Sony's director shortlist for the film was believed to include Adi Shankar, known for his dark, R-rated takes "on the properties he grew up on", and Adam Wingard. In May, Sony announced that Tom Hardy would star as Eddie Brock and Venom in "Venom", to be directed by Ruben Fleischer and officially begin a new shared universe, later titled "Sony's Spider-Man Universe". Fleischer was chosen after a long search by Sony, and as a longtime fan of the character expressed excitement at the visual possibilities of portraying Venom on film and the potential thematic ideas associated with the character such as duality. David F. Sandberg met with Sony beforehand to discuss the possibility of directing the film, reading its script and meeting with them, but Sandberg had already been approached by Warner Bros. to make "Shazam!" (2019), preferring to direct "Shazam!" over "Venom" due to that film's crew consisting of people Sandberg had worked with at New Line Cinema. The casting of Hardy, whose son was a big fan of Venom, happened quickly after he left director J. C. Chandor's "Triple Frontier" in April and Sony "saw an opportunity to court an in-demand talent".


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Riz Ahmed was in talks to join the film in August 2017, with Matt Smith, Pedro Pascal, and Matthias Schoenaerts all having been considered for the same role. In September, Michelle Williams entered talks to join the film as a district attorney and Brock's love interest. By October, Jenny Slate, Reid Scott, and Scott Haze were in negotiations to join as well, with Slate up for a role as a scientist. Also at that time, Kelly Marcel was writing the latest draft of the film's script. The final budget that Sony allocated for the film's production was $100 million, though "Deadline Hollywood" revealed in September 2018 that a deal between Sony and Chinese production company Tencent Pictures meant the latter had ultimately covered a third of these production costs for the studio.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: In June 2017, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige confirmed that "Venom" was solely a Sony project and Marvel Studios had no plans to connect it with the MCU. However, producer Amy Pascal soon clarified that Sony intended to have their films take place in "the same world" as the new MCU film "" (2017), describing them as "adjunct" to that world. She said that "Venom" would connect to the next planned film in their shared universe, "Silver & Black", and that there was potential for Tom Holland's Spider-Man to appear in either. Carnage was also expected to appear in "Venom" at that point. In July, Columbia Pictures president Sanford Panitch explained that Sony was not interested in producing "conventional comic-book movies" and was looking to give each film in the series a distinct style. "Venom" was considered "a spin on a horror film", inspired by the works of John Carpenter and David Cronenberg, but with "more pop and fun". Fleischer said he has "always been drawn to the more antihero superheroes. There's a dark element to [Venom] and a wit that has always appealed to me." He said the film would explore Venom's origins and the "Jekyll and Hyde" relationship that Brock has with the symbiote.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: The film is primarily based on the "" miniseries (1993) and the "Planet of the Symbiotes" story arc (1995), borrowing the San Francisco setting of the former. Spider-Man ultimately could not be included in the film because of Sony's deal loaning the character to Marvel Studios, challenging the writers to "make a movie with a character that's defined by Spider-Man without Spider-Man". For this reason, they looked to the Ultimate Marvel version of Venom—whose origin is not tied to Spider-Man—for inspiration. Pinkner and Rosenberg were told that Spider-Man could not be in "Venom" before they made their initial pitch for the film, and took the approach of trying to stay faithful to the spirit of the comics even if certain elements had to be changed, such as having Brock cross a moral line in his journalism which the character does in his comic book origin story. Fleischer noted that "Lethal Protector" aided in this goal since it, as the first solo Venom comic book series, had "broke [the character] free from Spider-Man". It also gave the writers a "solid foundation" to explore the more heroic side of Venom, rather than his more traditional villainous side from the "Spider-Man" comics, though Fleischer later described the film as having "no heroes". One of Venom's lines in the film, "Eyes, lungs, pancreas ... so many snacks, so little time", was lifted unaltered from "The Amazing Spider-Man" #374 (February 1993).


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Fleischer stated that they were planning a "huge world" with many characters while developing the film, including other symbiotes such as the villain Riot. Fleischer wanted "Venom" to stand out compared to other comic book-based films, and felt that tonally it would not remind viewers of the lighter MCU or the somber DC Extended Universe. It was important for him to honor the violence of Venom from the comics, where "he bites people's heads off and eats brains. It would be weird to make a movie with Venom if he wasn't doing that." Sony executives were reluctant to push this element so far that the film would earn an R-rating, which they believed would cause problems for potential crossovers with the family-friendly Spider-Man, as well as other MCU characters, in future films. "Venom" was eventually rated PG-13, with the violence toned down.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Principal photography began on October 23, 2017, with filming taking place in Atlanta and New York City. Matthew Libatique served as director of photography, while Oliver Scholl served as production designer after also doing so for "Spider-Man: Homecoming". Williams was confirmed to have joined the film in November, with Sony organizing her filming schedule to ensure her availability for concurrent, unexpected reshoots on "All the Money in the World" (2017). By December, Woody Harrelson was in talks to appear in the film, and Williams was revealed to be portraying Anne Weying. According to several reports, Tom Holland spent several days during "Venom"s production filming a cameo appearance as Peter Parker / Spider-Man for the film, but Marvel Studios asked Sony to exclude the scene from the final film.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Hardy recorded his lines for the symbiote at the beginning of each day, and these were played back to him through an earpiece on set during scenes where Brock and the symbiote talk to each other. Hardy had previously used this process when he played twins in "Legend" (2015). Fleischer allowed Hardy to improvise on set, and take the scenes where he felt they needed to go. For instance, Hardy noticed that a restaurant set for one scene had a lobster tank in it and decided that his character would get into the tank in the scene; the production design team had to work overnight to reinforce the tank and fill it with fake lobsters so Hardy could get in it the next day. Hardy also worked with Marcel to rewrite some of his dialogue for both Brock and Venom throughout the filming process. Additional filming took place in San Francisco from January 16 to 26, 2018. Locations included Russian Hill, North Beach, Chinatown, and the Financial District. Hardy wrapped filming on January 27.


title: Venom (2018 film)

text: Ahmed and Scott were confirmed to appear in the film in February 2018, and Will Beall was revealed to have done additional writing on the script. In the following months, Sope Aluko and Scott Deckert were revealed to be cast in the film, Haze and Harrelson were also confirmed to appear, and Ahmed was revealed to be playing Carlton Drake. Harrelson, who previously worked with Fleischer on "Zombieland" (2009), signed on to the film for a small role—he described himself as being "in a little fraction of this movie"—knowing that he would have a bigger part in a potential sequel. The role was revealed to be that of Cletus Kasady, the alter-ego of Carnage.