Fox Growing Into a Full-Scale, Seven-Night Network

Call it graduation week for the Fox Broadcasting Co.

In the next seven days, the 7-year-old TV organization will make two major moves in its bid for full-scale network status. Monday, the network will formally begin weekly movies that will take it into the fall season as a regular seven-night service. Then next Saturday, it will launch a prime-time newsmagazine, “Front Page” (which, one hopes, will be more palatable than a sensationalistic Fox predecessor, “The Reporters”).

When Fox’s new late-night series with Chevy Chase debuts Sept. 7, the company will be even more of a nightly competitive force against ABC, CBS and NBC. Says Fox Chairwoman Lucie Salhany: “That was the vision of the people who started this network--to expand to seven nights, be in late-night and ultimately become the No. 1 young adult network.”

Although Fox will have only 15 hours of prime-time programming this fall compared to 22 hours each for the Big Three, the impact of its gambling instincts and bare-bones management style has been considerable. Despite some program concepts that have been over the top and tasteless, the network has made waves, from “The Simpsons” to “Cops.”

At 8 p.m. Monday, the weekly “Fox Night at the Movies” introduces its summer fare with the film “The Babe,” starring John Goodman as Babe Ruth. But the mix includes TV movies, including “Lifepod,” which airs June 28 with Robert Loggia and Ron Silver in a tale of nine people stranded on a craft in space.

There’ll also be a July 5 science-fiction TV film, “12:01,” with Martin Landau and Jonathan Silverman in a story of “a man trapped in time who has the chance to change the course of fate.” And on Aug. 9, Fox spoofs the flood of reality-based TV movies with another original film, “Based on an Untrue Story,” with Dyan Cannon and Ricki Lake.

“There will be about 33 to 35 weeks of fresh TV product” in the combination of TV movies and features during the coming season, says Rick Bieber, president of Fox West Pictures. “We’re trying to promote a profile and identity for Fox TV movies--films you wouldn’t expect to see on the other networks, much more feature-like, more movie-movie.”

While a certain amount of crime stories are a given, Bieber says that Fox Broadcasting is generally taking a different direction from the Big Three’s emphasis on movies about “true crime, diseases-of-the-week and women in jeopardy,” which are targeted toward female viewers. Fox’s audience has a powerful base of young men: “We’ll have just as much a male slant as female.”

A young attitude will also be pivotal in “Front Page,” which debuts at 9 p.m. next Saturday, uses the classic Bradbury Building in downtown Los Angeles as its studio and includes such correspondents as Ron Reagan; Josh Mankiewicz, former political reporter for KCAL-TV Channel 9, and Vicki Liviakis, an ex-anchor for KCOP-TV Channel 13.

The idea, says Reagan--who gained attention with a late-night television show, documentaries for the E! cable network and on “Good Morning America”--is to “marry a younger sensibility to an old format. Mix in a little MTV with your ’60 Minutes,’ and I don’t mean that in a shallow way with graphics, but to capture a little bit of that attitude.”

Scheduled stories for the first program, says the Fox network, include “the rise in plastic surgery among teens,” an investigative story involving Hollywood and a “tale of environmentalism run amok.”

While New York is the home base for most network newsmagazines, “Front Page” not only has its headquarters here but also a strong Los Angeles presence among its line executives as well as the reporters. Executive producer David Corvo was a key news figure at KNXT-TV Channel 2 (now KCBS) as well as working for the parent CBS network. And senior broadcast producer David Browning was a longtime veteran of CBS News in Los Angeles.

“We’re trying to attract traditional news viewers, but also be compatible with Fox’s audience,” says Corvo. “We’ll be younger, with all that younger implies--the look, the attitude, the reporters. That’s the spin we’re trying to put on the shows.”

Corvo says the Bradbury Building is being used because “we wanted a cosmopolitan look. It makes a statement about the look of the show.”

Like its exceptional recent anthology, “Tribeca,” which failed in the ratings, Fox’s weekly movies and “Front Page” are indicative of the network’s aim to reach a slightly older audience than before, even though young viewers are still its bread and butter. Fox’s main audience has been 18-to-34 years old, but the range will now move more in the direction of 18-to-49.

“What we’ve done,” says Salhany, “is expand our demographics a little bit. Our average-age viewer is about a 28-year-old male, and we’d like to get that up to about 32 years old.”

Why?

“It’s just a little maturity. We’ve got to get a little older because our core audience is going to get a little older. But that doesn’t mean we’ve got to change our kind of unique programming.”

Fox is counting heavily on Chase not only to help give the network a well-rounded competitive presence but also to enhance its reputation for going its own way. Steve Binder, executive producer of the Chase series, says that although the writing staff won’t begin work until June 28, “what we do know is that it won’t be a passive talk show. It will be basically a comedy show.

“Our goal is not to fall into the traps of cliches. We know the audience is sick of formatted, formula talk shows. There won’t be an opening 10-joke monologue. That’s not to say Chevy won’t talk to the audience. But one rule we want is unpredictability. The idea is to put talented people around Chevy, not unlike what (David) Letterman is doing.”

Binder says the show will originate from the old Aquarius Theatre on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. He adds that the building, after being gutted, will be newly named after Chase--”and we intend to get outside the theater a lot. We think the theater will add to the show’s personality. And we have an artist who has all the tools--he’s not just stand-up, but a movie star, a TV comedian, a terrific jazz pianist and a bright guy.”

Fox has come a long way since Joan Rivers’ late-night series launched the network in 1986. In a few months, it will become more of a contender with the Big Three than it has ever been. But a new media age is dawning in cable and interactive TV, and that’s where Fox master builder Barry Diller has gone--planning a future with the QVC home-shopping network as his base. Salhany, however, thinks Fox is well-positioned for change:

“I don’t know what form it will take, but we want to keep up with that young audience and we will modify for that young audience. They will be able to come to Fox for cutting-edge programming, and we will grow with them and pursue the audience.”