# FX creating FXX



## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

And moving several top FX shows to the new network. Ugh....

http://www.thefutoncritic.com/news/...able-to-74-million-homes-878503/20130328fx01/

I hope they know what their doing....


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## SayWhat? (Jun 7, 2009)

http://www.dbstalk.com/showthread.php?t=213875

And it's _they're_ (contraction of 'they are'), not _their_ (possessive).


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## phrelin (Jan 18, 2007)

FXX???

Have they really thought this through? So what are they going to show on FXXX when they create it?

I understood the play with the name Fox and effects when they decided to go with FX. But....


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

It's like FX, but Xtreme!!1! Lol.

Network executives are such dolts.


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

It's even better.



> FX Networks will become a suite of three networks consisting of FX, FXX and FXM.


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

this is how I read it:

FX - dramas & miniseries, skewing to the mid age range (sort of like TNT)
FXX - comedies & other hip/edgier fair, targeted slightly younger (TBS with an attitude) 
FXM - more current movies, bye-bye FMC classics (the 1990s are the new 1940s)

at least they didn't mention anything about "reality" programming.


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## jimmie57 (Jun 26, 2010)

I wonder what channel it will be on DTV and what packages it will be carried in.

Fox only targets ages up to 54. I am glad I am not a target at 69. LOL


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

mreposter said:


> this is how I read it:
> 
> FX - dramas & miniseries, skewing to the mid age range (sort of like TNT)
> FXX - comedies & other hip/edgier fair, targeted slightly younger (TBS with an attitude)
> FXM - more current movies, bye-bye FMC classics (the 1990s are the new 1940s)


Seems reasonable, except that they're not moving all their big-name/hip/edgy comedies to FXX -- the press release specifically calls out "Louie," "Archer," and "Wilfred" as staying on FX.



jimmie57 said:


> I wonder what channel it will be on DTV and what packages it will be carried in.


My semi-educated guess is that it'll be in the same packages that FX is currently in.

The press release doesn't say it, but it's Fox Soccer Channel that's being converted to FXX. I think we can predict that DirecTV will be moving it out of the 600s, although it's hard to tell exactly where -- it probably depends on which existing shopping channels they have the power to move (i.e., which ones don't have contracts specifying a channel number).


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

phrelin said:


> FXX???
> 
> Have they really thought this through? So what are they going to show on FXXX when they create it?
> 
> I understood the play with the name Fox and effects when they decided to go with FX. But....


I don't think they've thought this through at all. They are moving all of the good shows over to this new channel and there is a good possibility that not all providers will carry FXX from day 1.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

trainman said:


> Seems reasonable, except that they're not moving all their big-name/hip/edgy comedies to FXX -- the press release specifically calls out "Louie," "Archer," and "Wilfred" as staying on FX.


Yeah, that struck me as odd also. Why move some of their hit comedies and not all?


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

RunnerFL;3203307 said:


> Yeah, that struck me as odd also. Why move some of their hit comedies and not all?


They may be trying to maximize appeal of the new channel without taking too much of a financial hit in the process. The real hits stay behind while the shows that are new and still growing move over.

I bet the plan is to incubate new programming on FXX and if it takes off, it will move over to the main channel.

There are two concerns with this, though. Almost no one will get FXX in HD to start, and how long before it turns into another generic channel? Remember, History offloaded all its historical programming to H2 to make way for reality crap, and now H2 is beginning to go down that road as well. Ditto Food Network and the Cooking Channel or MTV and MTV2. Or heck, VH1 and VH1 Classic. They all eventually become bland repeats of the parent channel.


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## RunnerFL (Jan 5, 2006)

Tom Servo said:


> They may be trying to maximize appeal of the new channel without taking too much of a financial hit in the process. The real hits stay behind while the shows that are new and still growing move over.


It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Leage are far from "new and still growing". They are the "real hits" of FX.



Tom Servo said:


> I bet the plan is to incubate new programming on FXX and if it takes off, it will move over to the main channel.


Their choices of shows being moved show no sign of that, they show the opposite in fact.



Tom Servo said:


> There are two concerns with this, though. Almost no one will get FXX in HD to start, and how long before it turns into another generic channel? Remember, History offloaded all its historical programming to H2 to make way for reality crap, and now H2 is beginning to go down that road as well. Ditto Food Network and the Cooking Channel or MTV and MTV2. Or heck, VH1 and VH1 Classic. They all eventually become bland repeats of the parent channel.


Exactly...


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

I haven't seen it explicitly stated in the news reports, but is FMC being completely converted over to the FXM brand/format? The last time I checked they were sharing, FMC by day, FXM by night.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

RunnerFL said:


> It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia and The Leage are far from "new and still growing". They are the "real hits" of FX.


Wow, I missed that in the initial read. That blows my theory out of the water.


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## mreposter (Jul 29, 2006)

trainman said:


> The press release doesn't say it, but it's Fox Soccer Channel that's being converted to FXX. I think we can predict that DirecTV will be moving it out of the 600s, although it's hard to tell exactly where -- it probably depends on which existing shopping channels they have the power to move (i.e., which ones don't have contracts specifying a channel number).


Yeah, the 240-260 range is packed pretty tight.

*FX is on 248.* TBS is 247 and 249 is Comedy, so they can't put FXX right next to the main channel. They might be able to move the Buzz shopping channel freeing up 243 or the Infomercial Mall off to free up 250.

I wonder if they would go so far as to move both FX and FXX so that they could be together?


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## Drucifer (Feb 12, 2009)

mreposter said:


> Yeah, the 240-260 range is packed pretty tight.
> 
> *FX is on 248.* TBS is 247 and 249 is Comedy, so they can't put FXX right next to the main channel. They might be able to move the Buzz shopping channel freeing up 243 or the Infomercial Mall off to free up 250.
> 
> I wonder if they would go so far as to *move both FX and FXX so that they could be together?*


That's logical, so don't expect that to happen.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

mreposter said:


> Yeah, the 240-260 range is packed pretty tight.
> 
> *FX is on 248.* TBS is 247 and 249 is Comedy, so they can't put FXX right next to the main channel. They might be able to move the Buzz shopping channel freeing up 243 or the Infomercial Mall off to free up 250.
> 
> I wonder if they would go so far as to move both FX and FXX so that they could be together?


 The importance of slot is much less than it used to be. Back in the day, channel 11 got more play simply because it had real estate staked out between 13 and 9 (you had to click through it to switch from 13 to 9 or back); AM stations wanted to be mid-dial, and educational FM got shoved down into the low 90's at the behest of deep-pockets owners like Clear Channel. If you were a UHF station you were merely a rumor to most of the potential audience.

And today in DBS and cable (and increasingly in OTA) the numbers are all virtual maps anyway; nothing has to physically move frequencies to shuffle everything.

But do people really watch TV like that anymore? Just turn it on and surf live for the least-objectionable program? I'm sure I don't speak for all viewers, but the day Tivo could record by program rather than by timeslot like a dumb VCR was the day I stopped keeping track of what show was on where and when, and that was over a decade ago.

That was also the day I stopped watching anything live; once you learn the basic trick of tuning in 15 minutes late and watching a show still playing while skipping commercials, with the end goal of timing it so you get through at the same time the program does, live just doesn't cut it anymore.

The gerrymandering of the dial just no longer matters all that much. Content has always been king, and it always will, and it becomes increasingly important as the conventional bariers to how we get the content are coming crashing down.

I get the idea of narrow-casting to demos, which is what FOX is doing; that makes a lot of sense. But FX is in the basic tier while FXM isn't, and God knows where that soccer thing is slotted package-wise, so I hope things don't shuffle around with the end result being it costing me more money.

My hope is that when they run a show like _Fringe _they will do second runs the same week to one of these horizontally-integrated outlets; FOX has a history of showing top shows one time only. This would also give failing shows that have a small but loyal audience a place to run out rather than be abruptly yanked.

I guess we will have to wait and see how this plays out, but generally speaking it seems like a positive move.


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## Tom Servo (Mar 7, 2007)

TomCat said:


> AM stations wanted to be mid-dial, and educational FM got shoved down into the low 90's at the behest of deep-pockets owners like Clear Channel. If you were a UHF station you were merely a rumor to most of the potential audience.


I don't believe this is true. In the heyday of AM station desired to be on the low end of the dial (<1000 kHz) because of better groundwave performance. 5 kW at 540 would give about the same coverage as 50 kW at 1500 (then the top of the dial).

And Clear Channel the corporation didn't exist until the 1960s as far as I know, and then only as owner of a few stations in San Antonio. The FCC probably set aside the NCE band as a favor to Universities and other institutes of higher learning as they were more shut out of the AM band at the time. If a mega-media company like CC had been around, there might not have been an NCE band at all so they could fit more stations on their commercial dial_!_

Finally, UHF was merely a dream for many TV viewers, as TVs in the early days of UHF didn't have a mandatory tuner, and converter boxes performed poorly. UHF took off quickly as technology improved and the FCC mandated UHF tuners in all TVs. There even sprang up some all-UHF TV markets like Huntsville, Alabama, so at least _some_ markets were watching back in the 50s and 60s.

It is true though that we still hang on to this notion of channel position from the days of VHF & UHF television. It doesn't make much sense to me, especially on satellite. Why does CNN think channel 202 is "front of dial" anymore, when the locals are on 2-69 and PPV eats up the entire 100s block? Still though, if you look at the channels on D* from 200-400 you'll see the lineup to some degree mirrors the analog cable lineup on most cablecos. The major exception I see is TWC, which is often in the 14-20 segment on analog cable.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

Channel position remains important ... even in the age of DVRs and receivers that find programs for customers. Similar channels together in the guide is expected - and when a channel is "out of place" it is noticed (and someone usually starts a thread saying "why is channel X in position Y" to complain about it).

If position didn't matter DirecTV and DISH would never move channels. They would be listed in the order added. They are not.

I do not expect FXX to stay at 619 on DirecTV. It would be out of place.

BTW: DISH currently has Fox Soccer Channel on 390 along with other special sports channels (FSC+ on 391, BeIN on 392, away from the ESPN channels in the 140s). DISH has 137 available next to 136 FX and 138 TNT/139 TBS so FXX (FX for generation X) could be moved there.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

Tom Servo said:


> I don't believe this is true. In the heyday of AM station desired to be on the low end of the dial (<1000 kHz) because of better groundwave performance. 5 kW at 540 would give about the same coverage as 50 kW at 1500 (then the top of the dial).
> 
> And Clear Channel the corporation didn't exist until the 1960s as far as I know, and then only as owner of a few stations in San Antonio. The FCC probably set aside the NCE band as a favor to Universities and other institutes of higher learning as they were more shut out of the AM band at the time. If a mega-media company like CC had been around, there might not have been an NCE band at all so they could fit more stations on their commercial dial_!_
> 
> Finally, UHF was merely a dream for many TV viewers, as TVs in the early days of UHF didn't have a mandatory tuner, and converter boxes performed poorly. UHF took off quickly as technology improved and the FCC mandated UHF tuners in all TVs...


Splitting hairs was not my intent, but if we need to split hairs, I can clarify some of this for you.

I did not specify "heyday"; that is your unspecified term and it can be argued that the "heyday" might have been in the 20's, or as much as 50 years later.

My unspecified term was "mid-dial", and by that I meant _in between other established stations_, regardless where they were on the dial. This was a market-specific issue; placement at a particular frequency depended on the competition. It was much less important to have good "ground-wave" coverage, especially in urban areas, than it was to be _a station you have to tune through_ to get from one more-popular competitor to the other. You built audience not just by having great coverage, but by getting noticed, and so hopefully listened to, and that was often done by being the road-block between other stations that folks tuned between.

Coverage was a factor, but you could vie for licenses at powers that would give you more coverage than you could eat, somewhat regardless of where you were on the dial. Some of the great clear coverage stations which had the largest reach were WLS at 890 and KOMA at 1520. I don't think they could have had that same coast-to-coast reach if low on the dial, nor at the time do I think they would have wanted to be there.

And if being lower on the dial was all that more sought after for technical reasons, why would the combined might of the NAB allow the FCC to at one point physically move every single station 10 to 40 KHz higher on the dial? The "ground wave" issue is a side issue; a technical issue. My post was about business, political, and cultural concerns.

I said companies "like Clear Channel", referring generally to congloms who ran hundreds of stations, such as in the 70's. I did not refer to Clear Channel specifically, but to "companies like Clear Channel". And the term "back in the day" can refer to any period of time from Marconi to just a few years ago.

I have no reason to know the political reasoning behind ED FM being relegated to the low 90's and below, but I know FM was a vast wasteland at the time, although successful AM broadcasters lobbied fiercely to push them to the back of the bus anyway. It was not a "favor", it was throwing them a crumb, instead, and was not an arbitrary decision by bureaucrats, but the result of a power struggle where the goliaths of the industry had the clout to ensure they got nothing more than a crumb.

I actually started my broadcast career at one of the very first FM stations licensed in that reserved band; I think it might have been a group of 16 or so.

Finally (to borrow your word), UHF was mandatory on TV tuners by 1965. By the time FOX launched its network in 1987, a generation later, it was still not ubiquitous by a long shot, and coverage was spotty and most viewers were disenfranchised from FOX and other non-established outlets "back in that day". ABC faced the exact same fate just after UHF tuners were mandated, and like FOX, it took a decade or more for them to become competitive.

While owning a VHF station was considered a license to print money, about a third of UHF stations between 1952 and 1970 or so went bankrupt, and that landscape did not change overnight. It was much worse in the 50's where over 10 billion of revenue (in 1950's dollars) would be lost in a single year, and often 2/3rds of stations launched would be gone within a year, but it did not "take off quickly" when tuners were mandated, not even close. A UHF station in the 80's or even in the 90's would have traded its eye teeth for a slot in VHF.

I stand by my earlier post, as well as this one, that all of that is indeed true.

So lighten up, get a grip, and believe whatever you like.


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## TomCat (Aug 31, 2002)

James Long said:


> Channel position remains important ... even in the age of DVRs and receivers that find programs for customers. Similar channels together in the guide is expected - and when a channel is "out of place" it is noticed (and someone usually starts a thread saying "why is channel X in position Y" to complain about it).
> 
> If position didn't matter DirecTV and DISH would never move channels. They would be listed in the order added. They are not.
> 
> ...


I agree it would be "out of place", and I agree that position matters, and also that it is unlikely for the station to debut or remain in the 600's.

My position is not that position does not matter; it is that it matters much less than ever before. And I do not accept either of your arguments to the contrary. Some yahoo with too much time on their hands and nothing else to complain about deciding to spend their afternoon complaining on Twitter is not a cogent argument for how important position is, and speaking as a long-time industry insider with direct knowledge of why certain decisions are made, neither is your complete guess regarding why channels are slotted where they might be by DBS.

That is like saying the sky is blue because it always has been and no one's complained about it.


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## James Long (Apr 17, 2003)

TomCat said:


> My position is not that position does not matter; it is that it matters much less than ever before. And I do not accept either of your arguments to the contrary. Some yahoo with too much time on their hands and nothing else to complain about deciding to spend their afternoon complaining on Twitter is not a cogent argument for how important position is, and speaking as a long-time industry insider with direct knowledge of why certain decisions are made, neither is your complete guess regarding why channels are slotted where they might be by DBS.


Thank you for your opinion, but as previously illustrated both DBS providers disagree. If position didn't matter channels would not be separated into ranges. DirecTV names the ranges on their website.

BTW: We have had channel position discussions here on this fine forum ... so apparently you are insulting the forum that allows you space to write.


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## trainman (Jan 9, 2008)

TomCat said:


> Coverage was a factor, but you could vie for licenses at powers that would give you more coverage than you could eat, somewhat regardless of where you were on the dial. Some of the great clear coverage stations which had the largest reach were WLS at 890 and KOMA at 1520. I don't think they could have had that same coast-to-coast reach if low on the dial, nor at the time do I think they would have wanted to be there.


Yes, they absolutely could have if they were lower on the dial. Go back in time and ask, for example, WNBC 660, which had a _huge_ reach.

Exact dial position doesn't matter anywhere near as much as being allowed to operate a nondirectional 50-kilowatt signal with no one else on the frequency. (Or even *500* kilowatts, as WLW in Cincinnati was allowed for a time -- I can only imagine how well that boomed in.)

But if transmitting power, antenna height, etc. are identical...a station broadcasting at 540kHz _will_ have a greater reach than a station broadcasting at 1600kHz.



> And if being lower on the dial was all that more sought after for technical reasons, why would the combined might of the NAB allow the FCC to at one point physically move every single station 10 to 40 KHz higher on the dial?


You almost make it sound like armed FCC agents descended upon all the radio stations in the country with heavy equipment to pull their transmitting towers to a different location... 

That 1941 reallocation of frequencies was to reduce interference, which was obviously more important to the stations than any slight degradation in their signal that might have been caused by moving a few steps up the dial.



> I said companies "like Clear Channel", referring generally to congloms who ran hundreds of stations, such as in the 70's.


There were no real radio "conglomerates" in the '70s -- companies weren't allowed to own hundreds (or even dozens) of stations until various FCC deregulations occurred in the mid-to-late '80s. (Obviously, the networks had hundreds of affiliates, but even they could only outright _own_ 5 AM, 5 FM, and 5 TV stations back then.)


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## Jeffro (Dec 24, 2006)

Satelliteracer- What channel is FXX going to be on? What packages is FXX going to be in?


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