Fox found a new location for its Upfront but had some familiar faces.
Jane Krakowski, who hosts Celebrity Name That Tune, for the network pulled double duty, kicking off Fox’s shindig with another song and dance number, much like the one she had performed earlier on Monday at NBCUniversal’s Radio City Music Hall gathering.
Krakowski was joined by Jane Lynch, host of Celebrity Weakest Link, for the performance.
Super Bowl-winning quarterback Tom Brady, who is lead NFL analyst for Fox Sports and was at Netflix’s The Roast of Kevin Hart in LA last night, made it to New York to introduce Fox CEO and Executive Chairman Lachlan Murdoch, who made a surprising appearance at the Upfront, an event that he hasn’t tended to speak at.
“I’ve seen firsthand the passion and the drive of my Fox teammates, and I couldn’t be prouder to be a part of this amazing company. It’s not just the sports department, I work for Fox and for all of us that do, we know, it starts at the top with great leadership, and there’s nobody I’d rather work for than this guy. Please help me welcome Fox CEO Lachlan Murdoch,” the former Patriot said.
Murdoch said, “Tom spoke about Fox’s strategy and our focus on our deep connection with fans as a defined factor in his decision to work with us, and he’s absolutely right. This focus on our most deeply engaged viewers isn’t just verbiage, it’s how we designed and built our business. We’ve been deliberate in shaping a portfolio that puts us in a truly unique and powerful position in the marketplace. We don’t try to do everything. everything. And we don’t perceive scale, just for scale’s sake. Instead, we focus where it matters the most, live sports, live news, bold entertainment and ad-supported streaming.”
Unlike NBC, which eschewed sports talk to focus on scripted and unscripted television, Fox leant in on sports. “This week, you’re going to hear a lot about the value of live sports. At Fox, that’s not a new story. It’s what we’ve been delivering successfully for years. Fox is the leader in live programming and home to one of the fastest growing ad-supported streaming platforms in the business. That combination isn’t accidental, it’s intentional, and it works for us,” Murdoch added. “Fox continues to be an outlier in the marketplace. In fact, for the third year in a row, Fox is the only major media company consistently growing audiences.”
It was nearly 30 minutes in before any shows or movies were even mentioned and that was a Tubi project. Tubi CEO Anjali Sud talked up the ad-supported streamer’s move to bringing creators to the platform before introducing Summer’s Last Resort stars Jerry O’Connell, Sophia Bush and Violet McGraw.
Then came Baywatch.
The stars of the reboot – Stephen Amell, Hassie Harrison, Thaddeus LaGrone, Shay Mitchell, Noah Beck, Livvy Dunne and Brooks Nader – were on stage introducing a trailer that showed all of the beach chaos that you’d expect with the iconic I’m Always Here theme song.
“Can you imagine the budget for waxing and hair removal?,” joked Joel McHale.
Comedian McHale was on stage alongside Jon Hamm, who stars in Fox animated series Grimsburg, after his scripted comedy Animal Control moved to Sunday night, ostensibly replacing Bob’s Burgers in the Animation Domination block.
Memory of a Killer’s Patrick Dempsey and Michael Imperioli, were also there with Doc’s Molly Parker and Blair Underwood and Best Medicine’s Josh Charles and Annie Potts, as well as The Interrogator’s Stephen Fry and Jenna Elfman.
On the unscripted side, Gordon Ramsay never misses an Upfront and he appeared next to Fear Factor: House of Fear’s Johnny Knoxville. “Want to do something we’ll regret?,” the Jackass star asked the Hell’s Kitchen star.
Fox talked up its World Cup plans and revealed that James Corden, the former star of CBS’ The Late Late Show, would be hosting an aftershow during the tournament. He will present After Hours with James Corden alongside former Manchester United star Rio Ferdinand and comedian Ian Karmel, who was co-head writer of The Late Late Show.
Michael Strahan asked Corden, “Why Fox?” “Because they have the rights to the games?,” the West Ham fan replied. “If they didn’t, I’d do it on the network that did.”
Closing out, Brady said, “I spent my career surrounded by the most passionate fans on Earth. I never realized that passion could live outside of sports, but it does here at Fox and we’re relentlessly focused on delivery, not just for our fans, but also for our advertisers, every single day.”
