EXCLUSIVE: Fox is in the third-party business: its production arm Fox Entertainment Studios has sold The Dogwood, a multi-camera comedy from Mom co-creator Gemma Baker, to ABC.
It marks another step in the evolution of Fox, which in March 2019 found itself as an independent network with no production capabilities following Disney’s acquisition of Fox assets, including TV studio 20th Century Fox Television. The network has since built such capabilities, organically and through acquisitions of MarVista Entertainment and animation house Bento Box.
Fox currently has fully owned series across drama (Best Medicine), live-action comedy (Animal Control) and animation (Krapopolis). It is now starting to sell shows elsewhere, too. (Subsidiary Bento Box is behind Prime Video’s animated series Hazbin Hotel, while Studio Ramsay Global, a joint venture between FES and Gordon Ramsay, has Apple TV’s Knife Edge: Chasing Michelin Stars and Netflix’s Being Gordon Ramsay.)
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While a return to multi-camera comedy has been on Fox’s list of programming goals (the network’s last entry in the genre was Call Me Kat, which ended in 2023), its current comedy slate is largely male-driven, including live-action series Animal Control and Going Dutch. That makes The Dogwood a better fit for the female-skewing ABC, which also remains in the multi-cam comedy business; it has the Tim Allen sitcom Shifting Gears.
Written by Baker, The Dogwood centers on a workaholic mom who leaves her marriage and quickly discovers she’s the most sterotypical divorced dad anyone has ever met.
Baker co-created CBS’ Mom with Chuck Lorre and Eddie Gorodetsky. She rose to executive producer on the multi-camera comedy and served as co-showrunner with Nick Bakay on the last three seasons (6-8). Baker’s series credits also include CBS’ Two and a Half Men and, most recently, NBC’s Happy’s Place. She is repped by UTA and Jackoway Austen Tyerman.