Concerning FOX's "ownership" of The Simpsons

Status
Not open for further replies.
simpsonsfan20

simpsonsfan20

Banned
Joined
Feb 22, 2008
Messages
186
Location
Hong Kong
Personally, I believe that The Simpsons is rightfully owned by its creator, Matt Groening, but due to some legal garbage, it's owned by 20th Century FOX.
Now, my opinion on this is mixed. FOX has never tampered with the creativity behind the Simpsons, but as many know, FOX has done quite a lot of controversial moves on other shows, like quick cancellations and censorship. FOX has done the following few to The Simpsons:
-Censored several Treehouse of Horror episodes
-Pushed back all Treehouse of Horror episodes to November due to a Superbowl contract
-Nearly fired the entire voice cast over a pay dispute
-Removed all fanmade videos in video sharing sites including Youtube containing clips from The Simpsons and any other show from FOX due to "copyright violations"
-Temporarily placed The Simpsons into the "Friday Night Death Slot" during the early days

Your thoughts?
 
simpsonsfan20 said:
-Censored several Treehouse of Horror episodes
-Pushed back all Treehouse of Horror episodes to November due to a Superbowl contract
-Nearly fired the entire voice cast over a pay dispute
-Removed all fanmade videos in video sharing sites including Youtube containing clips from The Simpsons and any other show from FOX due to "copyright violations"
-Temporarily placed The Simpsons into the "Friday Night Death Slot" during the early days
Click to expand...

1. Maybe, like once, they did.
2. Not the superbowl, but the World Series, which gets incredibly better ratings than the Simpsons does.
3. That was a total bluff.
4. Along with EVERY OTHER STUDIO IN EXISTENCE, and they have a right to. Even if Groening had full legal rights to the show, he would've done the same.
5. When? Show me when this happened. Because it didn't.

Hell, the Simpsons has probably had the best treatment than any other Fox show in the network's history...
 
No, Fox does indeed own the Simpsons. Matt foolishly sold everything but the publishing rights to Fox when the show first premiered (it was holding onto the publishing rights that allowed him to form Bongo Entertainment Inc. and print Simpsons Comics)...he learnt from his mistakes and held onto the rights for Futurama. He signed the contract, Fox gave him the money, The Simpsons became theirs.

And as far as I can recall The Simpsons has NEVER aired on Fridays. It aired on Sundays for the first season, and then was shifted to Thursdays until (I believe) Season Six. Since then it has always been on Sunday once again.
 
know the difference between fox broadcasting and 20th century fox. same octopus (newscorp), two completely different arms. fox broadcasting (the fox network) simply purchases programming and schedules in order to achieve the highest ratings possible. the actual production company, 20th century fox, doesn't really have much to do with how the fox network schedules its programming. 20cf simply produces programming to the desire of purchasers (and it's not just fox that airs 20cf programming, as evidenced by futurama).

20th century fox owns the simpsons and the legal rights (but not character rights) to futurama. the production company has no bearing on where the show airs or if or when it's pre-empted or delayed. the production company does, however, regulate the content of the shows they produce. yet they do give a lot more leeway to matt, al and the other producers simply because the show has been comparatively successful for so long.

as the owner of the legal rights, the removal of the youtube videos was done by the production company. all of the other "things" (except for the friday night thing, which never happened) were done by the network.
 
wikipedia isn't always the most trustworthy source, you know
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top