Fox Nation To Revive Bordertown

 

Fox Nation is expanding its programming library on the first of the month!

Photo Credit: FOX

After being off the air for seven years, animated sitcom Bordertown will return for a second season on the streaming service Fox Nation. The Seth MacFarlane comedy originally aired on the Fox network in spring 2016 but only lasted a single, 13-episode season. MacFarlane is slated to have no involvement with this reboot and reportedly sold the rights to the series for $500. Bordertown takes place in the fictional town of "Mexifornia" where grumpy Border Patrol agent Bud Buckwald often butts heads with his happy-go-lucky Mexican neighbor Ernesto Gonzalez. 

Bordertown will undergo a "hard reset" for this reboot due to the network change and long hiatus it dealt with. For one, the entire voice cast will be replaced with Fox News personalities in an attempt to boost the status of the series. On top of being the program's showrunner, Tucker Carlson will be taking over the voice of Bud Buckwald, a character originally voiced by Hank Azaria. Ernesto Gonzalez will be voiced by Greg Gutfeld, a move that is sparking controversy online due to the exaggerated Mexican accent that Gutfeld will be using. Laura Ingraham will voice Bud's wife Janice, Ernesto's wife Maria, Bud's older daughter Becky, Bud's younger daughter Gert, and an assortment of other female characters. Jesse Watters will voice Pablo Barracuda, the biggest drug lord in the program's fictional town. Sean Hannity is set to play Ernesto's son Ruiz, Ernesto's undocumented father Placido, and Mexican trickster El Coyote. 

Outside of the voice cast shake-up, the series is expected to undergo a "conservative makeover". New showrunner Tucker Carlson intends to depict Bud's plight in a more sympathetic light and has reportedly disparaged the Fox entertainment network's animation lineup. When called for comment, Carlson said, "Liberal propogandist Seth MacFarlane wants us to view Bud as a racist who hates Mexican people. That could not be further from the truth. Bud is a hard-working patriot who stands up for his country. He is a loyal family man with true respect for the law and an impeccable border patrol agent who keeps America safe. We intend to make him the hero of this story. This is not going to be an insulting, perverted mess like Bob's Burgers or Family Guy. This will be a show all Americans who have love for their country can enjoy."

This marks the first time that Fox Nation has acquired a scripted series, indicating that the streaming service may be trying to become more competitive in the arena of online content. The second season will debut on June 31st with the season premiere "Biden Patrol". In the episode, Bud finds himself arrested after filming a viral video where he calls out Joe Biden for allegedly creating a border crisis. Episode two "Pronoun Palooza" will focus on Bud's refusal to call his daughter Gert by "she/they" pronouns. A total of 13 episodes are slated to be created for season two and will be released on a weekly basis. Production will be handled by the new animation studio American Art instead of Bento Box Entertainment. 

Timeslot Sinkers: Fox Sunday, 9:30

Timeslot Sinkers: Fox Sunday, 9:30

Photo Credit: FOX

FOX Renew/Cancel Watch: How Many Shows Can FOX Really Cancel?

Canceled	Certatin to be Canceled	Likely to be Canceled	Watching	Likely to be Renewed	Certain to be Renewed	Renewed
Minority Report	Sleepy Hollow	The Grinder	Cooper Barrett’s Guide to Surviving Life	Bordertown	Empire	The Simpsons
		Grandfathered	Scream Queens	The Last Man On Earth	Family Guy	Bob’s Burgers
		Bones		New Girl	Gotham
					Brooklyn 9-9
					Rosewood

The Simpsons and Bob's Burgers have both been renewed. Empire, Family Guy, Gotham, Brooklyn 9-9, and Rosewood are also all getting renewed, no questions asked. That's 7 shows that FOX either has or definitely will renew by May, and possibly some at Friday's upcoming TCA. In addition, The Last Man On Earth's decent ratings compared to the rest of the comedies prompted me to move it up to a likely renewal. I've also moved Bordertown from a likely cancellation to a likely renewal after this week's 1.5 A18-49 rating, which was a promising 83% retention out of Family Guy.

FOX

Meanwhile, look at the shows that I'm watching. Cooper Barrett premiered to a 1.2, and rose to a 2.1 for its second airing, but only because of football inflation. In addition, Scream Queens premiered to a mediocre 1.7, and fell to a very poor 0.8 A18-49 rating by the ninth airing. I do think that W18-34 may be its main demographic, but even then, it's pulling in poor ratings.

All four shows could easily be cancelled looking at these live ratings alone. However, if all four are cancelled and the rest of my predictions indeed turn out to be correct, then FOX would have renewed 8 shows and cancelled 9. Can they really do that?

Nope. Not with American Idol leaving the schedule too. And with the fact that I also trust that FOX is starting to look more into the C7 ratings as well as the C3, FOX may be the toughest of the Big 4 networks to predict. However, I do have a hunch that FOX will begin to tout itself as the "young-skewing network".

Is FOX The Young-Skewing Network?

Compared to shows on other networks, most of FOX's shows have unbelievably good (often close to 1:1) ratios amongst the hard-to-reach-live M/W18-34 and A18-49 demographics. In the case of Empire, the W18-34 numbers have actually been higher than the A18-49 numbers, and such can be said for most airings of shows like Family Guy and Bob's Burgers. In fact, here are all the FOX shows that perform well in the M/W18-34 demographics relative to their A18-49 numbers:

M18-34
Bob's Burgers
The Simpsons
Family Guy
Cooper Barrett's Guide to Surviving Life
Bordertown
The Last Man On Earth

W18-34
Scream Queens
New Girl
Grandfathered
Rosewood
Empire

Now, that's a LOT of shows that do relatively well in the M/W18-34 demographics! All of the above shows either tie, beat, or fall just a tenth under their A18-49 ratings in their M18-34 or W18-34 ratings, depending on the show.

Unfortunately, very few of those shows do better than low 1s in the ratings. However, they are definitely hitting a demographic that other networks are having trouble doing, and I am beginning to think that if FOX had to choose between two shows with identical A18-49 ratings, they would renew the show that does better in M/W18-34. This is one of the reasons why a show like Bones may lose out to a show like Grandfathered, if you told me that one had to be renewed and the other canceled. However, seeing how Grandfathered is unable to grow more with its newly-obtained New Girl lead-in, combined with the fact that 20th Century Fox does not distribute the show, really diminishes its prospects as well.

Notably missing from the list are: Gotham, Brooklyn 9-9, The Grinder, Bones, and Sleepy Hollow. Brooklyn 9-9 is still a certain renewal for syndication purposes, and Gotham because despite not having as high a young-skewing ratio week-in and week-out, it is still one of FOX's highest-rated shows.

At this point, it is mostly a matter of which of the young-skewing shows perform best all-around. This includes, but is not limited to, C3 ratings, C7 ratings, streaming data, and VOD ratings.

What do you think of my predictions? Leave your thoughts and predictions in the comments below!

Animation Domination: A Look Back At FOX's Animated Comedies

In advance of the prime time premiere of Golon the Insatiable, I took the opportunity to create a little history lesson about FOX's Animation Domination, starting with the origins of The Simpsons and going through the highlights of all of their animated hits.

Click on the image below to begin, and enjoy! For a better reading experience, the text is easily readable and is broken up by many images. Please note that although it is made in Adobe Slate, it is presented in a different manner than the recent ratings and schedule posts.