Billboard Women in Music 2025
In an unprecedented 4×4 order, Fox has picked up four 20th TV Animation series for four seasons each, renewing animated stalwarts The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers for four more years and confirming American Dad!‘s return to the network after an 11-year break, also with a four-season order. Solidifying its status as the top linear home of adult animation, the network called the pact with Disney TV Studios, which had been in the works for months, a “meganimation deal.”
It will take all four animated comedies through the 2028-29 broadcast season. The term is not arbitrary. It matches the length of the $1.5B extension Fox signed with Disney streamer Hulu in November that also runs through 2029. It was that deal, which includes in-season streaming rights to Fox’s slate, that paved the way for the network and 20th TV Animation parent Disney TV Studios to hammer out the blockbuster multi-series, multi-year pickup. (Hulu and sibling Disney+ are already the exclusive global streaming home of the four series’ collective library of all 2,000 episodes, with Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers and American Dad! on Hulu and The Simpsons on Disney+ in the US.)
According to sources, the four pickups are all for 15 episodes a season each. While that is below the standard 22-episode orders, broadcast networks, including Fox, have been increasingly favoring shorter runs for scheduling and financial reasons. The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers have already been airing fewer than 22 episodes a season for the last couple of years.
Doing 15 episodes — which is still considered a full season by current broadcast standards — will give Fox room on the schedule for its owned animated series like Krapopolis and Grimsburg, which the network makes money off by selling them internationally and exploiting their libraries on streaming, something it is currently doing by licensing the two shows to Netflix.
Meanwhile, 20th TV Animation has been keeping the output level of The Simpsons and Family Guy consistent by producing holiday specials for Hulu (Family Guy) and Disney+ (The Simpsons) to supplement their episodic orders by Fox. That is expected to continue under the new renewal, I hear.
Balancing out the shorter seasons is the fact that the per-episode license fee for the three returning Fox series is staying the same, I hear. That is not very common for long-running shows that get more expensive with time as networks regularly push for fee reductions.
The delay in announcing the four-series pickup, which was agreed upon in principle late last year, stems in large part from the need for 20th TV Animation to make deals with the casts and producers on each show. The process was interrupted by the devastating L.A. fires, which impacted talent on multiple series. The last outstanding pacts with actors on The Simpsons are now being finalized, and the casts and showrunners on all four shows are set to return for the four additional seasons.
Special relationship
The setup under the Fox-Hulu agreement has worked well for both the network and Disney, with Fox keeping its animated tentpoles on the air while the studio gets revenue from a broadcast window while supplying its corporate sibling streamers with top-performing animated series.
Last year, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers ranked as two of the Top 10 most streamed shows in the U.S., according to Nielsen, with 42.44 billion and 36.79 billion minutes viewed, respectively. The Simpsons, Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers also ranked among the Top 10 comedies of the 2023-24 broadcast season in adults 18-49. For almost a decade, Family Guy has been Fox’s most-streamed program, averaging 9.4 million viewers this season.
Possibly because of the model’s success for its existing legacy series on Fox, I hear Disney TV Studios approached Fox last year about adding American Dad! to the group after the end of the series’ run on TBS in March 2025.
Created by Seth MacFarlane, Mike Barker and Matt Weitzman, American Dad! premiered on Fox in 2005 and was a part of the network’s animation lineup until moving to TBS in 2014. This marks the second MacFarlane animated series to return to Fox following a break after Family Guy did it two decades ago. Next season, all four veteran comedies will be part of the network’s Animation Domination block together for the first time since 2013-14.
“This new deal celebrates the eternal popularity of these iconic comedies, as well as the enduring, prolific relationship we continue to enjoy with our friends at 20th Television Animation and the brilliant creators – that goes double for Seth this time around — and incredible voices behind these contemporary classics,” said Michael Thorn, President of Fox Television Network.
The renewals encompass the 16th through 19th seasons of Bob’s Burgers, the 24th through 27th seasons of Family Guy and the record-setting 37th through 40th Seasons of The Simpsons, extending its standing as the longest-running scripted primetime series in television history. American Dad! will return to Fox for Seasons 20 through 23.
“The longevity of this agreement reaffirms our commitment to the successful partnership we’ve built with the incredible team at Disney,” said Rob Wade, CEO of Fox Entertainment. “This collaboration has and will continue to generate meaningful long-term value and strategically build audiences from Fox to Hulu to fans worldwide.”
The renewal extends a relationship between Fox and 20th TV Animation that goes back decades, when the two units were part of the same company prior to Disney’s acquisition of Fox assets. Keeping the relationship going on the live-action side has proven more challenging. The last remaining 20th Television-produced live-action series for Fox, 9-1-1: Lone Star, ended its run on the network this season.
Four-year pickups are extremely rare in other day parts — CBS’ daytime drama The Young & The Restless is in the middle of one right now. In primetime, they are pretty much unheard of, with the closest reference likely being Netflix’s deal with Disney/Marvel for four series and a team-up limited series more a decade ago but it did not involve multiple seasons.
“This historic four-season order from our longtime partners at Fox is truly monumental for these iconic animated series,” said Marci Proietto, head of 20th Television Animation. “We are so proud that these legendary shows will continue for hundreds of more episodes, allowing new and longstanding fans to watch, rewatch and experience more of The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad and Bob’s Burgers for years to come.”
The Simpsons is a Gracie Films Production in association with 20th Television Animation from creator Matt Groening, developed by James L. Brooks, Matt Groening and Sam Simon and executive produced by Brooks, Groening and showrunner Matt Selman. MacFarlane is creator and executive producer of Family Guy with Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin serving as executive producers and showrunners. Bob’s Burgers was created and is executive produced by Loren Bouchard with Nora Smith and Holly Schlesinger serving as executive producers and showrunners.