“Family Guy” and “Bob’s Burgers” Off-Network Syndication Rights Headed To Freeform & FXX ; What Should WarnerMedia Do Now?

Get ready, folks! The ink is barely dry on the Disney buy of 20th Century FOX and that Mickey Mouse muscle is showing some flex. Don’t believe for five seconds what Deadline tells ya that this was planned for a while. Here’s the thing, it was, but no chance this has anything to do with a bidding war. This is just Disney showcasing it’s chess movies and this is just “RQB-4”.

Starting with Family Guy Season 16 and Bob’s Burger’s Season Nine, FXX will soon have all three of FOX’s Sunday Night lineup at it’s disposal starting this Fall. Freeform will also get a couple hours a week from the new pacts as well.  After the existing deals with TBS finish up, it’s expected the entire libraries of Family Guy and Bob’s Burgers will soon only be on FXX with Freeform also getting to carve out an hour or so a week with episodes as well. This leaves TBS and Adult Swim with large voids in their programming lineup which affects both here in the States and even in Canada where Adult Swim just launched a 24-hour network that included all of those properties as well.

For FXX, this now gives them entire libraries of The Simpsons, Archer, Bob’s Burgers, and Family Guy…not too shabby, and a great way to potentially surround new original programming should FX Networks decide to get it’s act together and green light some original animation .And just to stick it to Turner Networks (who has both Family Guy through 2021 and Bob’s Burgers), FXX will begin airing episodes of Family Guy the day after TBS does it’s monster marathon to celebrate the show’s 20th Anniversary. A five-hour block is expected to air next Tuesday on FXX with a one-hour block coming to Freeform on Wednesday. On FXX, Family Guy will air Tuesday (9-11 PM), Thursday (12-1 AM) and Sunday (7-9 PM), the latter of which makes zero sense considering that’s when FOX airs it’s premieres of the same three shows we’ve been talking about this whole time.

This also begs the question as to what TBS’ future in original animation is really going to be. American Dad is the network’s only animated series in which it continuously airs premiere episodes after Family Guy marathons. Without Family Guy, you’re gonna need another strong lead-in to the Seth MacFarlane-produced series to make it worth your while. Furthermore, TBS has given sister-network Adult Swim the first broadcast rights to Final Space which was the big story yesterday. And what about American Dad’s future? Does 20th Century FOX continue to produce the series for TBS or do they move it to FXX in the future as well?

If I’m WarnerMedia, I’m considering giving Mike Lazzo the keys to a 24-hour Adult Swim network replacing TruTV and moving my adult animation efforts over there so as to focus more on live content on TBS and getting some more diamonds from Mike like Rick and Morty. 

[h/t: Deadline]