With original shows making up 40 percent of its summer slate, including baseball’s All-Star Game and the new action adventure “Roar,” the Fox network claims an 11 percent ratings increase over last summer.
“As an industry, we can no longer afford to keep shutting down in the summer,” Peter Roth, president of the Fox Entertainment Group, told TV critics last week. “We can’t afford to lose viewers every summer, because here’s a bulletin: They’re not coming back.”
With just five new shows on a fall schedule beginning Sept. 8, Roth called Fox an island of stability in a marketplace where 49 percent of prime time is either new shows or old shows at new times.
Roth also announced:
–“New York Undercover,” renewed for a 13-episode midseason run, gets three new cast members, including Tommy Ford of “Martin”;
–Dyan Cannon will guest-star on the Sept. 15 second episode of David E. Kelley’s new legal drama, “Ally McBeal”;
–Sally Field, Burt Reynolds, John Ritter, Carl Reiner, Jennifer Jason Leigh, comedian Chris Rock, political operative James Carville and rockers Green Day have signed on as guest voices for “King of the Hill,” which will start its second season this fall.
–Helen Hunt, Alex Trebek, Joe Namath, Jim Varney, Janeane Garofalo and Jan Hooks are among those who will do voices on “The Simpsons,” which is starting its ninth season.
Fox TV president David Hill, ruling out the possibility of a Fox nightly newscast, said a news magazine show was possible next summer.
Hill also said the next few weeks would see a decision on the fate of the low-rated “Fox After Breakfast” series.
“It was a bold, brave experiment that viewers saw and rejected,” he said.
– Alex Kingston, who is jumping from her success last season in PBS’ “Moll Flanders” to a new role in TV’s top hit, NBC’s “ER,” opines that American TV is “very violent” and hypocritical about sex.
The actress says that she was pleased that “Moll Flanders” aired in the U.S. with her nude scenes uncut.
“To sort of pretend and deny that (sex) goes on and to deny the public access to seeing genuine acts of lovemaking, I think, is actually damaging,” Kingston says. “I think it’s far better to show something like that than to show somebody being raped or hit around or whatever.”
– Emilio Estefan Jr., husband and manager of singer Gloria Estefan, has signed a deal with Universal TV to produce programing for network, cable and syndicated television.
In making the deal, Universal has indicated its desire to pursue the rapidly growing viewer demographic of bilingual Latinos.
