Entertainment

TV Execs Shake Things Up for Fox’s 2015-16 Lineup

Published

9 years ago

May 12, 2015

Lucious (Terrence Howard, third from right) toasts his family in the “Devil Quotes Scripture” episode of “Empire” on Fox. (Chuck Hodes/Fox)

LYNN ELBER, AP Television Writer

NEW YORK (AP) — The swan song of “American Idol” and heavy doses of comedy and sci-fi will mark Fox’s 2015-16 season.

The once-blockbuster singing contest, which launched the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Carrie Underwood and Jennifer Hudson, has seen its audience dwindle and age. “Idol” will come back next year for its 15th and final season with returning judges Jennifer Lopez, Harry Connick Jr. and Keith Urban, Fox said Monday.

Ten new series will debut next season on Fox, including the comedy-horror series “Scream Queens” from “Glee” producer Ryan Murphy, with veteran scream queen Jamie Lee Curtis in the cast.

New dramas will include “Minority Report,” based on Steven Spielberg’s futuristic film, and “The Frankenstein Code,” about a resurrected former lawman.

Fox and the other broadcast networks are unveiling their plans to advertisers in New York this week to lure them to spend on their programs.

EMPIRE BUILDING

Fans of freshman hit “Empire” won’t have to wait until next winter for new episodes. Fox announced Monday that the drama will be on its fall schedule. But viewers should brace for a break in the planned 18 episodes. It’s a split-season approach for Fox shows that network executives said will allow for a run of episodes with a midway cliffhanger — a way to create an “event” aura.

With the strong ratings last season, stars are eager to join in. Fox said Chris Rock, Lenny Kravitz and Alicia Keys will make appearances.

“The stories we’ve heard for season two already are just going to blow away the audience,” said Dana Walden, Fox Television Group CEO and chairman.

AGING OUT

Fox is giving two time slots on Tuesday night to leading men who have aged out of the network’s target audience of 18-to-49-year-old, although it’s hard to tell by looking at them. But John Stamos, star of the new “Grandfathered,” and Rob Lowe, of “The Grinder,” are both 51 years old.

“It’s just so exciting to see that there are still opportunities out there for ageless, beautiful men,” said actor-comic Andy Samberg (“Brooklyn Nine-Nine”) at the Fox presentation to advertisers.

WHAT’S GONE

“The Mindy Project,” along with fellow comedies “Weird Loners” and “Mulaney,” were canceled. Also gone are the dramas “Backstrom,” ”Red Band Society” and “The Following,” and the reality series “Utopia.”

WHAT’S BIG

The last chorus of “American Idol” will begin in January, with stalwart host Ryan Seacrest ushering the show to a (hopefully) graceful conclusion after a long and influential run that, at its peak, drew 30 million viewers every week.

PROVEN PLAYERS

Ryan Murphy, who gave Fox a hit with “Glee,” is getting another chance with “Scream Queens.” Writer-producer Chris Carter, who created a landmark Fox series with “The X-Files” (1993-2002), will reunite with stars David Duchovny and Gillian Anderson to try to recapture the magic with a sequel starting in January.

LIVE

It worked for NBC with “The Sound of Music,” not so much with “Peter Pan,” but that isn’t deterring the peacock network from planning a live “The Wiz” or Fox from airing “Grease: Live,” a three-hour version of the musical. Julianne Hough and Vanessa Hudgens will star in the January special. With broadcasters desperate to keep viewers watching shows and commercials in real time, expect more such efforts.

DOUBLE DIPS

It promises to be a busy year for Rob Lowe and Jennifer Lopez, who are starring in shows for both NBC and Fox next season.

Lowe stars as an actor who attempts to become a real lawyer after playing one on TV in “The Grinder,” a comedy on Fox’s schedule in the fall. On Sunday, NBC announced that Lowe is a featured player in its comedy, “You, Me and the End of the World.” How will he do both? Fox executive Dana Walden said Lowe’s series with NBC has already been filmed and finished.

It might be busier for Lopez, who plays a New York City detective in NBC’s “Shades of Blue,” which is due in the midseason and, according to NBC, hasn’t been shot yet. Lopez is also back as a judge for the final season of “American Idol” on Fox.

PIANO MAN

Not since former ABC Entertainment chief Stephen McPherson showed off his dancing moves a few years ago has a network executive displayed a hidden talent at one of the annual schedule presentations. This time it was NBC Entertainment Chairman Robert Greenblatt, who played piano Monday as Dolly Parton sang “I Will Honestly Love You” to an audience of advertisers at Radio City Music Hall. Parton is making a TV movie, “Coat of Many Colors,” for NBC next season.

Parton kept her eye on the prize, telling Greenblatt — and the audience — that she’s discussing other projects with NBC, “so get that money out.”

NO NEWS

Chairs at NBC’s schedule presentation at Radio City were decorated with the “Today” show’s “rise to shine” slogan, water was passed out with the “Today” logo and video of the morning show’s stars was featured in a reel of NBC highlights. There was no sight of any news executives onstage, however, or any mention of suspended “Nightly News” anchor Brian Williams or his substitute, Lester Holt.

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O.J. Simpson, 76, Dies of Prostate Cancer

Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson, who rose to fame as a college football player who went on to the NFL and parlayed his talents in acting and sportscasting, succumbed to prostate cancer on April 10, his family announced.

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Orenthal James (O.J.) Simpson. Wikipedia photo

By Post Staff

Born and raised in San Francisco, the Galileo High School graduate was recruited by the University of Southern California after he was on a winning Junior College All-American team.

At USC, he gained wide acclaim as a running back leading to him becoming the No. 1 pick in the AFL-NFL draft in 1969 and joining the Buffalo Bills, where he had demanded – and received — the largest contract in professional sports history: $650,000 over five years. In 1978, the Bills traded Simpson to his hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, retiring from the game in 1979.

Simpson’s acting career had begun before his pro football career with small parts in 1960s TV (“Dragnet”) before “Roots” and film (“The Klansman,” “The Towering Inferno,” Capricorn One”).

He was also a commentator for “Monday Night Football,” and “The NFL on NBC,” and in the mid-1970s Simpson’s good looks and amiability made him, according to People magazine, “the first b\Black athlete to become a bona fide lovable media superstar.”

The Hertz rent-a-car commercials raised his recognition factor while raising Hertz’s profit by than 50%, making him critical to the company’s bottom line.

It could be said that even more than his success as a football star, the commercials of his running through airports endeared him to the Black community at a time when it was still unusual for a Black person to represent a national, mainstream company.

He remained on Hertz team into the 1990s while also getting income endorsing Pioneer Chicken, Honey Baked Ham and Calistoga water company products and running O.J. Simpson Enterprises, which owned hotels and restaurants.

He married childhood sweetheart Marguerite Whitley when he was 19 and became the father of three children. Before he divorced in 1979, he met waitress and beauty queen Nicole Brown, who he would marry in 1985. A stormy relationship before, during and after their marriage ended, it would lead to a highway car chase as police sought to arrest Simpson for the murder by stabbing of Brown and her friend Ron Goldman in 1994.

The pursuit, arrest, and trial of Simpson were among the most widely publicized events in American history, Wikipedia reported.

Characterized as the “Trial of the Century,” he was acquitted by a jury in 1995 but found liable in the amount of $33 million in a civil action filed by the victims’ families three years later.

Simpson would be ensnared in the criminal justice system 12 years later when he was arrested after forcing his way into a Las Vegas hotel room to recover sports memorabilia he believed belonged to him.

In 2008, he received a sentence of 33 years and was paroled nine years later in 2017.

When his death was announced, Simpson’s accomplishments and downfalls were acknowledged.

Sports analyst Christine Brennan said: “… Even if you didn’t love football, you knew O.J. because of his ability to transcend sports and of course become the businessman and the pitchman that he was.

“And then the trial, and the civil trial, the civil case he lost, and the fall from grace that was extraordinary and well-deserved, absolutely self-induced, and a man that would never be seen the same again,” she added.

“OJ Simpson played an important role in exposing the racial divisions in America,” attorney Alan Dershowitz, an adviser on Simpson’s legal “dream team” told the Associated Press by telephone. “His trial also exposed police corruption among some officials in the Los Angeles Police Department. He will leave a mixed legacy. Great athlete. Many people think he was guilty. Some think he was innocent.”

“Cookie and I are praying for O.J. Simpson’s children … and his grandchildren following his passing. I know this is a difficult time,” Magic Johnson said on X.

“I feel that the system failed Nicole Brown Simpson and failed battered women everywhere,” attorney Gloria Allred, who once represented Nicole’s family, told ABC News. “I don’t mourn for O.J. Simpson. I do mourn for Nicole Brown Simpson and her family, and they should be remembered.”

Simpson was diagnosed with prostate cancer about a year ago and was undergoing chemotherapy treatment, according to Pro Football Hall of Fame President Jim Porter. He died in his Las Vegas, Nevada, home with his family at his side.

He is survived by four children: Arnelle and Jason from his first marriage and Sydney and Justin from his second marriage. He was predeceased son, Aaren, who drowned in a family swimming pool in 1979.

Sources for this report include Wikipedia, ABC News, Associated Press, and X.