FOX NEWS, NEWS CORP. NEWS

An image of Rupert Murdoch at Moe's Tavern sitting next to Homer and Marge.

Media mogul and two-time Simpsons voice actor Rupert Murdoch has stepped down as chairman of both Fox Corporation, which owns the Fox broadcast network, and News Corporation.

The 92-year old billionaire launched a media empire in Australia, which expanded to the UK and the US. His company, News Corporation, acquired 20th Century Fox in 1985, and launched the Fox network the following year. He played a small role in getting The Simpsons on the air, or at least that’s what he told Vanity Fair in 2007:

I was at a program meeting with [Fox CEO] Barry Diller and the people at Fox Network, and afterwards Barry said, “Come into my room, I want to show you something.” And he had a tape there, of about 20 minutes in length, of all the little 30-second bits that had been through The Tracey Ullman Show. And he played it, and I just thought it was hilarious. I said, “You’ve gotta buy this tonight.” He said, “No. It’s more complicated than that.” So we went forward from there.

Sidenote: Bob Iger, who was then the head of ABC, expressed interest in buying the show, which may have tipped the scales in convincing Diller to greenlight a 13-episode season for the Fox network. Iger would later become CEO of Disney and acquire Fox’s film and television studios, which included The Simpsons.

It was Murdoch’s idea to move The Simpsons from Sunday nights to Thursday for its second season, putting it up against ratings juggernaut The Cosby Show, which was a big deal at the time. Executive producers James L. Brooks and Sam Simon thought it was a stupid move that could potentially kill the show, but it held its own and managed to beat Cosby at Thanksgiving, proving the upstart Fox network could compete with the Big 3.

Over the years, Murdoch’s reign has been beset by numerous scandals, including the phone-hacking scandal, the Dominion lawsuit, and multiple sexual harassment allegations at Fox News, to name a few.

Murdoch and his properties were a frequent target on The Simpsons. One episode depicted him as a fellow prison inmate of Sideshow Bob, and he would later voice himself in the episodes “Sunday, Cruddy Sunday” (in which he refers to himself as a billionaire tyrant) and “Judge Me Tender.” He remained a fan of the show over the years (or at least claimed to be), even tweeting in 2014 to praise a YouTube short the show had put out. Sadly, I could only find one photo of him posing with the yellow family that made him millions.

DIS INFORMATION

An image of the Simpsons and Apu from one of the video games running in the speedforce.

Remember when you watched The Simpsons in syndication and you could just enjoy a random episode, without the burden of having to consciously pick one? What if instead of being limited to one episode per evening (or perhaps two or even three depending on your TV market), the show was constantly airing 24/7? Well, that could become a reality sooner rather than later if streaming analysts’ predictions hold true.

Now that the streaming business model has imploded, the studios have realized that the linear TV model it disrupted wasn’t so bad after all and are eager to recoup their lost revenue by getting into FAST (free, ad-supported television) channels, which are essentially fake TV channels with commercials you can stream, many of which are dedicated to one show. Some even have their own services featuring these channels: Paramount has Pluto TV and Paramount+, Fox Corporation has Tubi, NBC Universal has Peacock, and Amazon has Freevee. Warner Bros. Discovery is launching their own service later this year. Even Netflix has hinted at getting in the game.

Disney has had an ABC News Live channel for years, and in May they added a few FAST channels on the ABC app, but so far they haven’t made any major waves in that space. Streaming analysts have mused on the viability of Disney embracing the FAST market and posit that a Simpsons channel would be a no-brainer.

Next TV:

The real question around Disney’s decision to launch an ad-supported Disney Plus offering isn’t whether it’s a good move. Rather, it’s when are they going to take the next step and launch a free ad-supported streaming TV service (FAST) that can compete with Paramount’s Pluto TV, NBCU’s Peacock and Fox’s Tubi?

Vulture:

Of course, the other possibility here is that rather than go for a quick buck now and sell to outside ad-supported platforms, Disney could just launch its own FAST service, as Warner Bros. Discovery is exploring. I don’t think it would make much sense to put anything too obviously Disney on such a platform as it might cheapen the brand. But a service which leaned heavily on the 20th titles, as well as content from ABC (including ABC News), could be a winner.

MarketWatch:
Additionally, internal FAST channels from other streaming companies — such as a “Simpsons” or Marvel channel for Disney+, or a teen-drama channel for Netflix — could be coming sooner than you think.

The Streamable:

The first 10 seasons are widely regarded to be the show’s best and would make perfect fodder for a dedicated single-series FAST channel. Disney+ could keep newer seasons behind a paywall, and still have plenty of content for such a channel.

What’s interesting about The Simpsons in particular is that they already were on FAST-like channels, as FX president John Landgraf mentioned in an interview:

When we bought The Simpsons, we built an app called Simpsons World that had every episode ever made in a perfectly searchable system. Then it had so-called channels, which were linear streams of Simpsons episodes. Eighty percent of the consumption was from the linear playlists, and 20 percent was on demand.

Here’s a screenshot of what those channels looked like, via Fast Company.

The Simpsons is already the most popular show on Disney+. Imagine what those viewership numbers would be if they added a channel that allowed you to drop in and just watch a random episode, freeing you from the tyranny of choice.

FOX NEWS

An image of Deep Space Nine being hit by a laser while Homer Simpson screams and Tucker Carlson looks mildly perturbed.

Red alert! Fox Corporation, the parent company of the Fox network and Fox News, is currently engaged in a $1.6 billion legal battle with Dominion Voting Systems that could potentially destroy the entertainment titan and bring an end to The Simpsons as we know it.

The Dominion suit alleges warped priorities led Fox News to amplify defamatory and highly illogical claims regarding the legitimacy of the 2020 presidential election, causing “diminution of enterprise value” for the electronic voting machine manufacturer. Text messages and emails gathered from Fox News employees in discovery were recently made public, exposing management’s reluctance to reign in their defiant fleet of star anchors, including Sean Hannity and Laura Ingraham, lest the network incur the wrath of conservative viewers. Rupert Murdoch, one of the founders of the news channel, privately admitted “maybe Sean and Laura went too far” in letting their impulses drive coverage.

Fox News has long been a ratings crusher and cable star dating back to its launch in 1996, but times are changeling. Data shows traditional linear television is in steady decline as more people cut the cord, and any resistance to this trend is likely futile. After the election, Fox News’s monthly ratings fell behind its longtime nemesis CNN for the first time in decades, a stunning feat suggesting the normally unphased network may need to augment its programming strategy in order to cling on to as many viewers as possible. The next generation of competitors, a pack lead by Newsmax, threatens to beam away Fox’s fracturing audience by catering to a menagerie of Q supporters and other fringe groups. Although it remans the number one news network, the primary directive for Fox News will be to try courting the pro-insurrection crowd while not alienating mainstream conservatives or advertisers, a balancing act of terrific sensitivity that could develop into a no-win scenario. Adding to the chaos, lobbying chief O’Brien departed the company earlier this month, leaving Fox without the experienced Washington voyager as it potentially enters a strange new world of tricky political terrain.

The fate of The Simpsons is greatly linked to Fox’s fortunes, as it is reliant on the network bearing the costs of its production. I’m no diviner, but if Fox News falls into darkness and Fox Corporation suddenly finds itself strapped for cash, the animated series could be headed to the great beyond. Disney purchased the motion picture studio behind The Simpsons from Fox in 2019, so under the rules of acquisition they would have the option to take it elsewhere or make it a Disney+ original series, were the Fox network to cancel the show. However, The Simpsons has enjoyed a long and prosperous life on Fox, a historical feat unlikely to be replicated, and if that day comes the crew may simply decide it’s a good day for the series to die.