Remember this network? Back in the 1990's, this network and Nickelodeon were THE places for awesome kids TV. I'm going to tell you some stuff about this network and how it met its downfall. This is part 1 of a 2, or if needed 3 part story.In October 1986, the Fox Network was launched across the United States by the Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation. This network was barely a network when it launched. The network's only program at the time was some crappy late night show starring that jerk Joan Rivers. This show only lasted a few months to be replaced with another talk show starring Arsenio Hall.
On April 5, 1987, Fox launched primetime with the shows "Married...with Children", "The Tracey Ullman Show", and the rest is history.
But what about kids? What did they get from Fox? Well, from 1986 to 1990, all Fox stations carried the Disney Afternoon block from Disney. This was most likely because Barry Diller, the head of the network, worked with then-Disney president Michael Eisner at the ABC network and Paramount Pictures years back. Then, in 1989, Disney bought a Los Angeles station called KCAL-TV 9, and thus wanted the Disney Afternoon to be shown on it, so they took it away from the city's Fox station, KTTV. Barry Diller was PISSED at Eisner's breach of contract. As a result, Diller took the Disney Afternoon off of all Fox owned and operated stations, and encouraged Fox stations that were not owned by Fox to do the same. Fox then began to create what would eventually become the Fox Kids Network a year later.
In Part 2, we'll cover the launch of Fox Kids and its first initial shows. Keep on reading!
-AsdfTheRevival
