Fox President Addresses Future Programming Decisions, Calls NBC A “Crazy Ex-Wife”

By Julie Zied
Fancast.com

The President of Fox Networks, Kevin Reilly, kicked off the network’s day-long session at the Television Critic’s Press Tour Tuesday with a lighthearted joke about the porn industry, saying “This is from Daily Variety, ‘Porn Biz Losing Mojo in Limp Economy.’ That is a sign. That’s when you know times are tough. GM, I get it. But the porn business, what is this country coming to?”

More importantly, what is the television industry coming to? Reilly addressed rival network NBC’s recent questionable, and cost-cutting programming decisions by quipping “NBC for me is like the crazy ex-wife I can’t get away from.”

On a more serious note, Reilly commented on NBC’s choice to hand over the 10 o’clock hour on a silver platter to Jay Leno, saying “I give them a lot of credit for signing up Jay. I was surprised to see that. I think it’s a smart strategic move for them in a very, very troubled place. So I think that’s the good part of it.”

As for the bad part, Reilly said “Stepping back just looking at the facts, the network historically has struggled establishing scripted shows at 8 o’clock. You have to go back to Fresh Prince in 1990 to find a self-starting scripted hit. You almost have to go back to Cosby before that.

“It’s been a historical challenge for NBC even at their height. So if 8 o’clock is the place where they’re going to struggle to establish scripted shows, they don’t program Friday, Saturday, or Sunday for half the year with scripted shows. On a historical level you look and say for the network that was a premiere brand for scripted television, that’s a little bit of a sad statement.

“Whether they make it go at a business level, we’ll see.”

Rather than focusing on Fox’s ratings slump of the fall with schedule clunkers Prison Break and Terminator: The Sarah Connor Chronicles, Reilly chose to be more forward-thinking, and positive-thinking for that matter, saying “This year you can look at our second season schedule. House is doing a tremendous job for us. We’re asking it to do a lot of heavy lifting. 24’s success really returned to the schedule.”

For fans of controversial reality series The Moment of Truth, which mysteriously disappeared from the schedule this year, there’s still reason to hold on to a glimmer of hope that it will return. On the status of when it new episodes will return, Reilly said “We have them on the shelf. We’ve got a season of them on the shelf, and nothing’s schedule yet, but I think it will come on the air at some point.”

On why he chose to pull the show from on-air, Reilly associated it with filler, saying “Fortunately we had other options. I think the show would be on the air if we need to. I don’t mean that pejoratively. I just think we had other things that we wanted to put on more immediately.

“So we have it as a tool when we want to go for it, maybe over the summer, or if we need fill a time period, we think it will do a job for us.”

As to the status of the hit sci-fi series Fringe, which moves to Tuesday’s after American Idol next week, Reilly exclaimed “It’s a keeper.”

Reilly wasn’t shy about discussing some of the issues they’ve had with the J.J. Abrams production, saying “The show’s been a bear creatively because it’s been very ambitious.

“I don’t think there was a tougher time period on television as Tuesday at 9:00 o’clock between The Mentalist and the lead-in they had and two very strong reality shows on the other two networks. Even though Fringe had a lead-in, they had to perform every week, and they did. So I think the show’s in a great groove.

“Honestly, I would not expect it to take off after Idol, but I do expect it to have a little bit of tick up to the next level and hopefully solidify in a really double-digit share.”

And what does the future hold for Idol judge Paula Abdul, who recently told Barbara Walters that she’s still under contract with the show?

“Paula’s an integral part of the show,” said Reilly. “As far as we’re concerned, we want to have her as long as the show goes. When we get into those discussions, we’ll see where Paula’s head is at. “

As for the hit – and perennial schedule-hopper - procedural drama Bones, Reilly said he hopes to give it a permanent home on Thursday’s, saying “I’d like to stop moving it around. If it does what we think it’s going to do on Thursday, we’ll glue it to the schedule there.”

Watch full episodes of many of these Fox shows here on Fancast.