FOX & THE EMMYS : Hot on Heels of Big 3, Fourth Network Charges Optimistically Into Fall Season

On the cover of the McCann-Erikson advertising agency’s analysis of the fall television season is a drawing of a hungry-looking fox nipping at the heels of three fleeing hounds, each emblazoned with the logo of one of the major networks. The symbolism is anything but subtle: Fox, the fledgling fourth network that will broadcast the Emmy Awards on Sunday night and then launch its third night of series programming Monday, is on the rampage--and ABC, CBS and NBC are running scared.

Since unveiling its first series 29 months ago, Fox “has increased the ratings on the 126 independent stations comprising their network by 50% on Saturday and by 300% on Sunday,” the agency said. “And needless to say, the big three networks were the losers.”

This past summer, with the networks airing mostly repeat programming, Fox gained even more ground. Last Sunday, for example, an original episode of Fox’s “Married . . . With Children” leaped into the Top 20 with big-league ratings. And for much of the summer, Fox was the No. 1-rated network among teens and adults aged 18-34 for its entire Sunday night schedule, network executives said.

“Fox is off the ground and running,” said Paul Schulman, president of the Paul Schulman Co. in New York, which buys network time for various advertisers. “They are a healthy operation and no longer one that people say won’t be around come next year. Fox is a player.”

Fox’s summer strategy of introducing a new series, “Totally Hidden Video,” airing original episodes of “Cops,” “The Reporters” and “America’s Most Wanted” and jumping the gun on the networks by premiering new seasons of “Open House” and “Married . . . With Children” last month clearly boosted the ratings and the confidence level of the young network as it enters its third full season. And the network that lost about $90 million its first year, thanks to such infamous disasters as “Karen’s Song” and “The Adventures of Beans Baxter,” will now turn a tidy profit this year, according to Jamie Kellner, Fox Broadcasting’s chief executive officer.

But while there is an air of celebration in the halls of Rupert Murdoch’s American television network, there are still a few reasons to refrain from popping the corks on the billionaire media mogul’s best champagne just yet.

Whether Fox will be able to sustain its summer growth once the Big Three unveil their highly publicized new schedules in full force over the next two weeks, for example, is a question that evokes only cautious optimism, even from Fox’s ever-optimistic executives. Ratings for much of the network’s Saturday night lineup, though improved over last year, are still anemic. Though “America’s Most Wanted,” “Totally Hidden Video” and “Married . . . With Children” have been scoring big numbers, ratings for the final 90 minutes of Fox’s Sunday night lineup drop off precipitously. Fox still has only three dismal failures and no hopeful prospects to show for all of its efforts in late night. And in launching a third night of programming against such formidable network competition as “ALF,” “Monday Night Football” and “Murphy Brown,” Fox is once again venturing into potentially risky and inevitably rocky territory.

“We have built into both our business and programming plans precautions for failure, and we’re certainly not enjoying the legacy of success and profitability of the three major networks,” Kellner said. “But at this point no one bad night can knock us out of the box.”

Indeed, as a show of confidence, Kellner reports even before the Monday experiment begins that Fox will roll out a fourth night of weekly made-for-TV movies some time this season and a fifth night of series programming next fall.

Schulman said that such confidence stems from the fact that Fox already has sold what for it is a whopping $300 million in advertising for the network’s three nights of programming this season. (NBC’s so-called “up-front” sales totaled about $1.7 billion, ABC’s $1.3 billion and CBS’ $1.1 billion for an entire week of programming.) Last year, Schulman said, Fox wasn’t even a participant in the up-front ad game--but he also predicted that Fox’s shows will not perform anywhere near as well as the network has predicted.

“We thought Hans Christian Anderson must have been doing their (ratings) estimates,” Schulman said. “They are close to double what we estimated. They will probably be paying back their advertisers all year long.”

Still, Schulman said, Fox’s excellent demographics make it a “great buy” for movie studios, soft-drink manufacturers, cereal companies and any other advertiser that wants to reach a young audience.

“You have three networks crying about their declining audiences and you have Fox, which is noting with glee that their ratings improved 50% last season,” said Betsy Frank, senior vice president of the Saatchi & Saatchi advertising agency.

“The summer is not terribly indicative of what will happen this fall, but there is a lot of momentum behind what they’ve done,” she said. “I’m not saying they will beat the networks in individual time periods, but they will remain competitive for the younger audience.”

While acknowledging the tougher competition waiting for it this fall, Peter Chernin, president of Fox’s entertainment division, predicted that Fox will maintain its momentum because many young viewers will be returning to television after a summer of nights out.

In planning the expansion of programming, Chernin said that Fox officials decided to move the successful cop show “21 Jump Street” from Sundays to Mondays at 8 p.m. “We wanted to launch our new night with an established show, and by promoting it on Sundays, I think ‘Jump Street’ will own Monday’s teen audience and do even better,” he said.

“And we spent a lot of time thinking about what to do against football and CBS comedies and movies on NBC at 9 p.m., and we decided to put on a show that doesn’t look like anything else on television. ‘Alien Nation’ is a program with multifaceted appeal--the sci-fi aspect appeals to young people, the women characters will appeal to women and the buddy cop element appeals to men.”

Frank said that Fox will find establishing a new night of programming on Monday more difficult than establishing a beachhead on Sunday because the competition for the young, urban audience is much stiffer. She called the “Jump Street” move a “smart idea” and predicted that, because Fox has a smaller overhead and doesn’t need NBC-sized ratings to succeed, both “Jump Street” and “Alien Nation” will survive.

Schulman was not so optimistic. He said he doesn’t think “Jump Street” will do nearly as well on Mondays against “ALF,” “MacGyver” and CBS’ “Major Dad,” and he also noted that Fox may have hurt itself on Sundays because “Booker,” the “21 Jump Street” spinoff that will move into its 7 p.m. time slot Sept. 24, lacks the enormous appeal of “Jump Street” star Johnny Depp.

Meanwhile, Chernin said that despite the continuing low ratings for “The Tracey Ullman Show” and “It’s Garry Shandling Show,” Fox considers them “prestigious, signature” programs and has no plans to dump either of them. Of the 12 Emmy Award nominations that Fox received this year, 10 were for “The Tracey Ullman Show.”

“It’s not getting numbers like ‘America’s Most Wanted,’ ” Chernin said, “but we’re very proud to have it on our network. We are a service that should have lots of different kinds of appeal.

“This will be a significant season for Fox,” Chernin said. “When you look at television, we are the single thing that has shown dramatic growth over the last year.”