In an unprecedented 4×4 order, Fox has picked up four 20th TV Animation series for four seasons each, renewing animated stalwarts The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers for four more years and confirming American Dad!‘s return to the network after an 11-year break, also with a four-season order. Solidifying its status as the top linear home of adult animation, the network called the pact with Disney TV Studios, which had been in the works for months, a “meganimation deal.”
It will take all four animated comedies through the 2028-29 broadcast season. The term is not arbitrary. It matches the length of the $1.5B extension Fox signed with Disney streamer Hulu in November that also runs through 2029. It was that deal, which includes in-season streaming rights to Fox’s slate, that paved the way for the network and 20th TV Animation parent Disney TV Studios to hammer out the blockbuster multi-series, multi-year pickup. (Hulu and sibling Disney+ are already the exclusive global streaming home of the four series’ collective library of all 2,000 episodes, with Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers and American Dad! on Hulu and The Simpsons on Disney+ in the U.S.)
According to sources, the four pickups are all for 15 episodes a season each. While that is below the standard 22-episode orders, broadcast networks, including Fox, have been increasingly favoring shorter runs for scheduling and financial reasons. The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers have already been airing fewer than 22 episodes a season for the last couple of years.
via Deadline
John Pallister
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