Complete Coverage: NAB Show 2016
Fox coCEOs and chairmen Dana Walden and Gary Newman said the Empire phenomenon has been a blessing, but the company's mission is to keep nurturing it so it becomes a building block for other hits.
Forecasting next month's upfront presentation, Walden said the show would remain in its Wednesday home, and the schedule would feature other recognizable IP like a new spin on 24 and a reboot of Prison Break would provide welcome consistency. We're going to have the most stable schedule we've had in many years, she said. Having been at the studio for so long and having seen networks that change too much and others who respect their audience and leave things in place.
Related: Fox Affiliates Have Their Say Tuesday
The network has boosted development by 30%, she added, aiming to address the exit of American Idol and the need to keep the slate fresh.
The session blended industry talk with production scoop from executive producer Ilene Chaiken by the show's 22-year-old discovery, Bryshere Yazz Gray, who plays Hakeem Lyon on the show. (In a welcome departure from NAB panel norms, Gray led the crowd in a brief call-and-response rendition of show anthem Drip Drop. )
Related: Ericsson, Fox Partner Up on Content Delivery
In terms of episode orders and limited runs, areas where Fox has been actively experimenting in recent years, Newman said nothing is off the table.
One thing the audience has spoken loudly about is that they're not interested in seeing repeats on our air, Newman said. They're not really that interested in waiting a week or two for pre-emptions to come back to the original run. So this year we made an effort to give people a run of original episodes and we found that that has worked.
Related: TV One Gets Rights to Reruns of Empire
The approach can boost marketing spending, he noted, but added, It's just a reality of television. The cable and digital models have gotten people interested in digesting shows in smaller bites.
Newman said running both the studio and the network in the current climate has really complicated our business. One core reason for that is the long-held notion of keeping series scarce [in non-linear platforms] so they can later be monetized has just completely collapsed.
Related: Survey Finds Good News, Bad News for Ad Blocking
Creatively, the split season proved a tonic, Chaiken said. The elements of the show, especially the incorporation of music into the storyline, means that 18 episodes are like 22 of another show. The split schedule for 2015-16, which created two cable-esque mini-seasons, offered some relief. It was a really smart schedule and we were grateful for it, she said. It allowed us to be as good as we were capable of being and also reboot the show midway through to focus more on the Lyon family.
Like its broadcast peers, Fox faces a jigsaw puzzle of cultivating audiences with originals, given the outsize presence of live events, Newman said. Fox, for example, has the Super Bowl next February. Newman said there is an internal debate about how to schedule Empire or other shows around an early February break.
Walden ruled out Empire as a possibility for the coveted post-Super Bowl slot, which will be announced at the upfront.
Moderator Michael Schneider, an editor with Indiewire and Variety, noted that Empire creator Lee Daniels has said that a spinoff of the show is inevitable. He has said that, Walden said flatly.
When Schneider followed a long pause with a nudge to the panel, Chaiken finally put in, Our focus is on making the show we have. The attention is now on Season 3 - Maybe if we get it under wraps, we'll start talking about a potential spinoff.
Chaiken added, When you see the finale for Season 2, you'll know a lot about the direction of Season 3. Asked how he would want his character to evolve, Gray said writers could make him a little bit more likable. But I like being a villain. It's fun. He's like a lovable villain.
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Complete Coverage: NAB Show 2016
