Cartoon in Family Way

By Paige Albiniak
( Broadcasting & Cable )
published

Two years after Fox canceled The Family Guy, the show is going back into production at Twentieth Century Fox Television.

The studio has committed to producing a minimum of 22 new half-hour episodes, to be aired on the Cartoon Network and perhaps the Fox network. Fox, the former prime time home of the cartoon, also has an option to license original runs of those episodes.

In syndication, The Family Guy is the number-one cable show in its time period among adults and men 18-34 and among adults and men 18-24. It's been airing on Cartoon Network's Adult Swim block since April 20, 2003.

The show also was the top-selling TV show on DVD in 2003. Said creator Seth McFarlane: "Now all those crazy kids who've been hounding me to bring the show back and stop bothering me and move onto more serious matters – like saving Coupling."

Paige Albiniak
Paige Albiniak

Contributing editor Paige Albiniak has been covering the business of television for more than 25 years. She is a longtime contributor to Next TV, Broadcasting + Cable and Multichannel News. She concurrently serves as editorial director for The Global Entertainment Marketing Academy of Arts & Sciences (G.E.M.A.). She has written for such publications as TVNewsCheck, The New York Post, Variety, CBS Watch and more. Albiniak was B+C’s Los Angeles bureau chief from September 2002 to 2004, and an associate editor covering Congress and lobbying for the magazine in Washington, D.C., from January 1997 - September 2002.