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Foxnet was a national cable television programming service of the Fox Broadcasting Company (known simply as Fox) that was owned by the Fox Entertainment Group division of News Corporation. The service, which operated (in its original form) from June 6, 1991 to September 12, 2006, was intended for United States television markets ranked #100 and above by Nielsen Media Research estimates that lacked availability for a locally based Fox broadcast affiliate.
Foxnet acted as a nationalized programming feed offering Fox prime time, sports and Fox Kids programming, and a master schedule of syndicated entertainment and brokered programs that were broadcast outside of time periods designated for Fox programming. Fox handled programming, advertising and promotional services for the service at its Fox Network Center corporate headquarters at the Fox Studio Lot in the Century City district of Los Angeles.
Since 2017, Fox (owned by indirect successor Fox Corporation since 2019) has at times provided a generic national feed of the network (identified as "Foxnet" on certain interactive program guides) to selected cable and virtual multichannel video programming distributors (vMVPD) without access to a local or nearby Fox station, or in the event that a local affiliate is off the air temporarily due to transmitter damage caused by severe weather.
Many smaller markets, however, were served by three or fewer commercial stations, most of which were already affiliated with at least one of the existing major broadcast networks. This issue left Fox's only options to reach these areas being to either settle for a secondary affiliation with one of the major network stations (which would have forced Fox programs to air in off-peak timeslots subject to lower viewership or in a hodgepodge of program and timeslot clearances), going with a station owned by a religious broadcaster which could block portions of their schedule based on moral concerns (which actually was the cause of Fox terminating several affiliations in its early days), or affiliate with a spare low-power station, which often maintained low-quality schedules prevalent with home shopping or infomercial outside of prime time and were usually associated with smaller networks such as Channel America; the network rarely utilized these options in order to not associate their programming with low-effort stations and networks, leaving it with gaps in national clearance in several smaller markets, while it only carried secondary affiliations on Big Three stations only starting in 1994 to distribute their NFL coverage in some scattered markets until a stand-alone station could launch.
To expand its distribution to these areas, original network president Jamie Kellner (who would remain in the role until his departure in 1993, when he co-founded Time Warner and the Tribune Media's network venture The WB) developed the concept of a national cable feed of Fox that would provide the network's programming to smaller television markets throughout the United States where the network could not maintain an exclusive over-the-air affiliation – known as "white areas" – due to the limited number of commercial television stations available or where a local cable provider did not import the signal of an out-of-market Fox station to act as a default affiliate of the network.
Foxnet launched on June 6, 1991, originally maintaining an 18-hour daily schedule (from 6:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Eastern and Pacific Time). The service maintained a master schedule of programs intended for broadcast syndication from various distributors (some sourced from then-sister company 20th Television) and brokered programming to pad out its broadcast day outside of Fox programming hours, utilizing a general entertainment format similar to that of the parent network's broadcast stations during that timeframe. (At the time Foxnet debuted, Fox only offered a limited schedule of prime time programs—two hours Thursday through Saturday, and four hours on Sundays—and the nascent Fox Kids block, then consisting of a three-hour Saturday morning lineup as well as a single half-hour program each weekday.) FoxNet's inaugural schedule consisted mostly of theatrical and made-for-TV movies, and reruns of classic and obscure television series from the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s (such as The Ann Sothern Show, Husbands, Wives & Lovers, The Felony Squad and Peyton Place); separate national advertising airing within syndicated programs and local ad slots during Fox network shows mainly consisted per inquiry ads and public service announcements in its early years.
During its existence, the service never officially identified itself specifically as "Foxnet" on-air; its network identifications consisted solely of the Fox logo in use at the time, with a voiceover reading "you're watching Fox." (Separate logos incorporating Foxnet branding were used to advertise the service in media publications and promotional materials for prospective providers.) Timeslot cards and verbal continuity announcements promoting the service's syndicated programs identified show airtimes by Eastern Time Zone scheduling (sometimes accompanied by Central Time references, mirroring conventional network promotions). By 1992, Foxnet reached 1.3 million subscribers throughout the United States, and served nearly two million viewers at its peak.
As Fox expanded its presence to most television markets through primary affiliations with full-power or low-power broadcast television stations (the latter now more well-associated under the ownership of other full-power stations and refusing the low-quality networks and paid programming prevalent in the early low-power era), and by the mid-2000s, carriage on digital subchannels of stations affiliated with other broadcast networks, Foxnet's coverage had in turn shrunk to the point where very few areas had a need for the service. In addition, most cable providers in markets that remained unserved by a local Fox station until it acquired a standalone primary or subchannel-only affiliation began importing out-of-market affiliates to relay the network's programming (in many cases, replacing Foxnet on the provider's lineup), or in rare cases, partnered with an already-existing major network affiliate to create a dedicated Fox cable channel (one such example was "CGEM" in the Hannibal, Missouri/Quincy, Illinois media market, which was initially operated by NBC affiliate WGEM-TV and Continental Cablevision at the time of its launch in 1994 before migrating to a digital subchannel of WGEM-TV in 2006). Foxnet was also carried in portions of some larger media markets where a reliable signal from an over-the-air affiliate or a translator was not receivable; one such example included Eastern Iowa (where KFXA's signal only covered Cedar Rapids and Iowa City and not the cities of Waterloo or Dubuque; Foxnet was carried across most of Eastern Iowa between October 1994 and KFXB-TV's affiliation with Fox in August 1995 as KOCR was off the air during that time owing to financial issues).
Viewers in Foxnet markets that had a subscription to a direct broadcast satellite service also had the ability to watch an out-of-market Fox station via a given provider after receiving permission from the network: DirecTV and Dish Network subscribers could receive network-owned KTTV (channel 11) from Los Angeles or WNYW (channel 5) from New York City; until that provider's 1999 merger with DirecTV, subscribers of Primestar could receive either Oakland/San Francisco affiliate KTVU (channel 2, also now a Fox owned-and-operated station) or Philadelphia affiliate-turned-O&O WTXF-TV (channel 29). However, in some cases, satellite subscribers could receive the Fox station with rights to the network's programming within the market. As a result, some areas that were not served by a Fox affiliate at the time of the network's launch never offered Foxnet; examples included Palm Springs, California (which was served by KTTV prior to KDFX-CD's September 1994 switch from CBS to Fox), South Bend, Indiana (which was served by WFLD/Chicago, WXMI/Grand Rapids and WFFT-TV/Fort Wayne prior to WSJV's October 1995 switch from ABC to Fox) and the western portion of the Plattsburgh/Burlington market (which was mostly served by WNYW prior to WFFF-TV's August 1997 sign-on).
From October 2001 to April 2003, most Fox programming in the state of Maine was only available via Foxnet, as WPXT (which served as the network's Portland affiliate) disaffiliated from the network to join The WB after affiliation renewal negotiations between then-owner Pegasus Broadcasting and Fox broke down; that station had been carried by cable providers in Bangor since the network's launch. When WPFO and WFVX-LD affiliated with Fox in the respective markets, Foxnet was relegated to the Presque Isle area, which was one of the last remaining markets without a local Fox affiliate. A similar situation happened in southwestern Mississippi when WDBD (also affected by the Pegasus–Fox dispute) initially disaffiliated from the network at that time also to join The WB; WDBD would eventually reaffiliate with Fox in 2006, taking the affiliation from WLOO (which signed on in September 2003, now WLOO).
Because of Foxnet's shutdown, 13,000 cable subscribers nationwide were estimated to have lost access to Fox network programming. By this time, the network's market share had increased to 98.97% of all U.S. television households. Indeed, network executives had been looking forward to the point that its national penetration had increased to the level that Foxnet would no longer be needed.UPN, also aired Fox programming.
The concept and programming strategy behind Foxnet served as the basis for The WB 100+ Station Group, a service owned by Time Warner and Tribune that operated from September 1998 to September 2006 – which was succeeded by The CW Plus, once The WB and UPN were shut down and replaced by The CW in September 2006 – for markets that did not have a WB-affiliated station. Though unlike Foxnet, The WB 100+, which was also co-founded by Kellner, was stylized (to an extent) similarly to an over-the-air broadcast station and local operators were allowed to tailor the service to their individual market with their own branding, with some of the outlets even carrying local news or sports programming. Foxnet, however, was formatted in the manner of a traditional cable channel with no local programming content provided by its carriers.
The national Fox live feed, however, differs drastically from the structure of Foxnet in that secondary programming from Fox's sister cable networks, including Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network, and previously National Geographic Channel and Nat Geo Wild (both now majority-owned by The Walt Disney Company through its 2019 acquisition of 20th Century Fox and most Fox Entertainment Group assets from the Murdochs), is offered outside of network programming hours, rather than any syndicated content. Like Foxnet, this national feed is likely to eventually be discontinued as Fox and the network's affiliates agree to terms allowing full streaming of their stations on the Hulu live TV service and other streaming live television providers under future affiliation agreements.
After the landfall of Hurricane Laura in August 2020, KVHP, the Fox affiliate for Lake Charles, Louisiana, was taken off the air as its studio facility (shared with fellow Gray Television-owned NBC affiliate KPLC) sustained damage when their studio transmitter link tower toppled into the building. Fox then fed its default national feed meant for streaming use to local cable providers until KVHP resumed full operations at the end of 2020. Fox also provided the default national feed to YouTube TV subscribers in the Tallahassee, Florida market in September 2024, after that provider lost access to WTWC-TV (as well as its Sinclair-owned parent NBC affiliate, which was temporarily replaced by that network's New York City flagship station WNBC) amid the landfall of Hurricane Helene.
Otherwise, a dual programming model was utilized for Foxnet that differed from the traditional affiliate model – in which the local station handled responsibilities for acquiring and scheduling syndicated and local programming to fill timeslots not occupied by network content – that is used by Fox stations in large and medium-sized markets. Fox maintained responsibility over the programming of timeslots within Foxnet's schedule that were not occupied by Fox network programming, absolving the local cable provider of the duty of having to acquire syndicated programming to fill timeslots outside of Fox's network schedule. The acquired programs primarily consisted of shows that were airing at the time in national syndication and classic television series; syndicated feature film packages – with most titles being sourced from the library of then-sister studio 20th Century Fox – usually filled select weekend timeslots (which following the incorporation of Fox Sports in 1994, began to be limited to weekend time periods that were not occupied by sports programming), and, until 1993, primetime slots (Fox began offering primetime shows seven nights a week in the fall of that year). Fox also leased time to direct response program producers and ministries to carry brokered programming (such as and religious programs) during overnight and some morning and early afternoon timeslots.
Foxnet was designed for the Eastern and Pacific Time Zones; as such, the Fox Kids and (from September 2002 to September 2006, after the network leased its children's programming to 4Kids Entertainment) 4Kids TV blocks, which were designed to be broadcast delay, were aired an hour early on affiliates in other time zones. As the network was carried as a cable network without any broadcast distribution, the FCC's educational content regulations for children's programming did not need to be fulfilled, nor was it subject to any FCC regulations which applied to broadcast networks.
Foxnet carried one original program, The Spud Goodman Show, a talk show that aired Sunday nights at 10:00 p.m. Eastern Time – following the conclusion of Fox's primetime lineup – from 1996 to 1998. Though Fox did not carry any national news programming of its own at the time of its launch (and only has one news program presently on its schedule in the form of the political talk show Fox News Sunday), Foxnet did carry a simulcast of sister network Fox News Channel's daily evening newscast Fox Report in the 10:00 p.m. (Eastern) time slot from February 1999 until the service's discontinuation.
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