What's going on at Fox?

Here’s a Friday Question that became an entire post.

Gretchen asks:

I wonder what your thoughts are on Fox changing their sitcom schedule. For several years they've been the "young and cool" network with niche single camera comedies like New Girl, Brooklyn 99, Last Man on Earth, etc. They never became massive hits but everything put together gave them a nice brand.

Now they're clearly going a whole new direction cancelling almost all of their single camera sitcoms and picking up multi-cam comedies that are targeted for an older audience ("The Cool Kids" which stars Martin Mull and David Alan Grier in a retirement home and of course, "Last Man Standing" returning). Do you think they're making the play to go broader because of the upcoming Disney merger?

Absolutely, and that’s very astute on your part. But I think there are several things in play.

When Michael Thorn took over as president of the network he clearly stated that he believed in multi-cams.

And just a quick time-out to remind everyone that multi-camera comedies are shot like a play in front of a live audience. Four cameras are recording the action simultaneously. Single-camera comedies like THE GOLDBERGS are shot like a movie with one camera and no audience. Okay, now that everyone is up to speed…

People forget that FOX has had very few live sitcom hits, and that two of its biggest were indeed multi-cams. MARRIED WITH CHILDREN and THAT ‘70s SHOW. So it’s not like this is groundbreaking. Thorn believes, as I do, that the problem is not the format but the execution. When there’s a comedy that people want to watch, (a la ROSEANNE or BIG BANG THEORY) they don’t give a shit how many cameras there are. It’s just that multi-cams are held accountable. They have to be funny because they have an actual audience. And part of the problem with most single-camera sitcoms is that they’re not funny. They’re quirky, they’re ironic, they’re mildly amusing – but they’re not funny. Many single-camera niche comedy showrunners claim they don’t aim to be really funny. I claim it’s because they can’t be really funny.

For years now Fox has had the reputation as the hip niche comedy provider. Single-camera shows like NEW GIRL and THE MINDY PROJECT. Here’s the reality: NEW GIRL did well out of the gate but started to slide. None of their other niche comedies really broke through. In some cases Fox renewed low rated sitcoms because they owned them and wanted to accumulate enough episodes for syndication. And now there are numerous cable and SVOD networks offering niche comedies so Fox doesn’t even have a corner on the market.

Now Fox wants to be competitive. They’re clearly going for a broader audience with shows like THE COOL KIDS (about a retirement home) and LAST MAN STANDING. Economics also play a part. Fox owns LAST MAN STANDING. Once ROSEANNE became a big hit and Fox sensed LAST MAN STANDING would appeal to the same audience they revived it. Fox will be adding to their LMS inventory but more importantly going after ratings they never could achieve with THE MINDY PROJECT (no matter how many ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY love letters were written about it).

I also think they’re trying to rope in some of their audience from Fox News. LAST MAN STANDING is certainly a great carrot for that.

Will this experiment work? Hard to tell. Fox has always had trouble launching live sitcoms. But is that network promotion or just bad network development? Had Fox introduced better sitcoms might they have found success? Who knows? Fox has the advantage of NFL football to bring in viewers who don’t ordinarily watch that network. Especially this year since they have Thursday Night Football. So at least people will see the promos for these new shows. Whether they’ll stick around for them is anybody’s guess.

But at the end of the day I applaud Fox for taking a chance with a new direction instead of just re-signing tired shows that have no future nor audience. And if this doesn’t work, I say bring back THE TRACEY ULLMAN SHOW.

from By Ken Levine