Fox has ordered one live-action comedy series next season, Animal Controlstarring Joel McHale, after canceling his sophomore year Traveling in Dutch.
While several half-hour projects, including Mammoths, Thunderjacks again King Garyhas been hot on the network for the past few weeks, Fox Entertainment CEO Rob Wade and Fox Television Network President Michael Thorn revealed that they hit the comedy green light for a while until they came up with a business model that works for the linear network.
A few years ago, Fox launched a $3 million-$4 per episode drama series as it prepared for its status as an independent broadcast network following Disney’s acquisition of Fox assets, including studio 20th Television.
Lately, I’ve been hearing talk that Fox has been floating a $1.6M per-episode price tag for the live-action comedy.
According to sources, the network has not yet settled on the number as the process of restructuring the financial framework continues. And it probably won’t be a single license fee but multiple categories as is the case with dramas.
While $3M-$4M remains Fox’s sweet spot with shows like Doctor again Best Medicinesthe network also uses a cost-effective international co-production model for shows such as Small Town Murder, coming in at under $1M an episode. There is also a first class of dramas like this A Murderer’s Memory again Baywatch that coasts to more than $4M an episode.
“One of the things that Rob and I spent a lot of time looking at is, how do you make great art with a great model that’s built for the line today?” Thorn said in an earlier call on Sunday ahead of Fox’s launch on Monday. “And obviously, we’ve spent a lot of time on both drama and unscripted, and I’m not going to say that we can raise the ball, but we’ve evolved those production models in a way that sets us up for success, and now we’re taking a step back, and we’re doing the same thing in live comedy.”
While Fox brass is discussing possible business model ideas, one live network joke Animal Control, owned by Fox, is joining the Sunday cartoon block for its upcoming fifth season.
“We believe in the brand, you will see more of us in the future, but right now, our first priority is to strengthen. Animal Control status as a hit show, while we look at what we’re going to do next in the live entertainment space,” said Thorn.
Wade echoes his comments.
“We hope to see more comedies on the network in the future, and I think this gives us an opportunity to pause and, as Michael said, really dig into that business model and look at how we can make it successful in the long term,” he said.
New orders for the live-action comedy series are expected in early June.
Currently, Fox is leaning on comedy content beyond the scripted comedy space, with comedy dramas like Best Medicines, starring Josh Charles, and similar comedies The Nation’s Dumbest. The network uses comedians as hosts for many of its shows, including McHale (The 1% Club), Ken Jeong (99 Beat), Jay Pharoah (Questions with balls) and Jane Lynch (The Weakest Celebrity Link).
