Family Guy: Here Are The Facts Concerning The Series’ Future

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There has been quite a bit of confusion across the various social channels about the future of Family Guy. To be fair, the click-bait articles haven’t been well-written so we decided to write a follow-up to our original piece to discern what is happening in terms of the future of Family Guy and why it continues to sound like the series isn’t ending anytime soon:

1)Two Family Guy holiday specials are coming to Hulu later this year to ring in the holidays, more specifically, Halloween and Christmas. Craig Erwich has told Deadline that Family Guy accounts for 43 million minutes, making it the most watched animated series on Hulu. Furthermore, Craig notes that he would be interested in other ways to utilize Family Guy, possibly similarly to the way Disney+ does with The Simpsons. It should also be noted that Family Guy is one of the biggest cable TV series having helped increase viewership across the board for both FXX and Freeform. Adult animation is also a key driver of subscription growth for Disney Star internationally and Disney makes bookoo bucks selling these series overseas.

2) Family Guy is slated to return in 2025, most likely after the NFL Playoffs for the midseason schedule for FOX. When it does return it’s expected to return to its Sunday night slot with fewer lapses in-between new episodes which has been a bit of a problem over the last couple of years. Moreover, FOX President Michael Thorn notes that Disney likes having the broadcast window and the international sales division has been busy pushing the FOX originals like Grimsburg and Krapopolis overseas including Universal Basic Guys which is expected to have a first-look at Annecy.

3) The reason why Family Guy returned with new episodes earlier this year for Wednesdays is because the network had a logjam of new series including new episodes of Krapopolis and Grimsburg coupled with The Great North, The Simpsons, and the very occasional premiere of Bob’s Burgers. The WGA-strike shortened season also premiered 15 episodes as opposed to the normal 20 that Family Guy is typically ordered.

That last point is important because even when Family Guy returns FOX is faced with yet another logjam. This fall, the network is expected to premiere new episodes of The Simpsons (season 26/not renewed yet), Bob’s Burgers(season 15/not renewed yet), Krapopolis (season two), and new series Universal Basic Guys(season one/renewed). So, if we keep up with the Animation Domination strategy of having four series with original debuts, midseason 2025 starts to get messy because we have new seasons of Grimsburg (season two, The Great North (season five/not renewed yet), Family Guy( season 23/not renewed yet), and there may be a case that FOX airs new episodes of recently canceled HouseBroken due to the fact THAT series was ordered for three seasons of 13 episodes for a total of 39 episodes with only 30 having aired thus far. Deadline has also been reporting that there’s a real shot for Bedrock to be ordered by FOX, so the network could make a case for a second night of the week to be filled with Animation Domination originals OR provide enough content so that the Sunday AniDom lineup has new originals going through Summer 2025.

Synopsis:

Entering its 22nd season, Family Guy continues to entertain its die-hard fan base with razor-sharp humor, spot-on parodies, spectacular animation and orchestra-backed original music. Since its debut in 1999, the series has reached cult status among fans, and its breakout star, a talking baby, has become one of the greatest TV characters of all time. Family Guy has racked up numerous awards, including an Emmy Award nomination for Outstanding Comedy Series, only the second animated series in television history to be honored with such a distinction. Most recently, series creator and lead voice actor Seth MacFarlane (voices of “Peter Griffin,” “Stewie Griffin,” “Brian Griffin” and “Glenn Quagmire”) was nominated for the 2021 Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance and won the 2019 Emmy Award for Outstanding Character Voice-Over Performance. Cast member Alex Borstein (voice of “Lois Griffin”) won the 2018 Emmy Award in the category. MacFarlane also was nominated that year. He won the 2017 and 2016 Emmy Award in the category, and was nominated from 2013 to 2015.

Family Guy is a 20th Television Animation production. Seth MacFarlane is creator and executive producer. Rich Appel and Alec Sulkin serve as executive producers and showrunners, while Steve Callaghan, Tom Devanney, Danny Smith, Kara Vallow, Mark Hentemann, Patrick Meighan and Alex Carter are executive producers.

 

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