Fox Greenlights ‘The Short-Com Comedy Hour' for Summer 2013

New series will help develop new multi-cams for the network

By Andrea Morabito -- Broadcasting & Cable, 7/25/2012 7:19:49 PM

Fox has ordered a new series it hopes will help develop its future multi-camera comedy brand.

The Short-Com Comedy Hour, set to premiere in summer 2013, will feature four short-form sitcoms per hour-long broadcast featuring established and up-and-coming actors and comedians. The development platform will have the comedic talent hone theirmaterial in scripted vignettes, with Fox commissioning the best to series.

"We are basically ripping open the traditional scripted comedy development process with The Short-Com Comedy Hour," said Kevin Reilly, president of Entertainment, Fox Broadcasting Company. "Our end goal is to provide distinct comedy voices with a world-class platform to experiment, grow and perfect their ideas and to hopefully build them into mainstream comedy hits in the future."

Fox announced a similar move on the animated side last January, creating an alternative animated content unit to develop and produce series for a Saturday late-night programming block and digital multi-platform network. The network said at the time it would launch four new animated shows (11-minuteshorts and 22-minute series) per season starting in January 2013, to build a bench of series that could step in when its long-running franchises like The Simpsons finally go off the air.