Fox dumps syndicated shows – and possibly Jennifer Hudson, too
Pictionary, Person Place Or Thing, and Dish Nation to end as Fox’s TV stations plan to make significant changes next season
In a surprise shellacking, Fox First-Run canceled three syndicated half-hour shows Tuesday: Person Place Or Thing, Pictionary, and the long-running Dish Nation, according to TVNewsCheck as Fox’s owned stations – including Fox 32 (WFLD) and Fox Chicago Plus (WPWR), have passed on renewing them for another season.
And there may be more – reportedly on the bubble is Warner Bros. Discovery’s entire portfolio of syndicated first-run strips including Extra, freshman show True Crime News, and The Jennifer Hudson Show, now in its third season. The Chicago native – who rose to fame as an American Idol contestant and became an Emmy, Grammy, Oscar, and Tony winner, is a surprise given hers is the highest-profile talk show on the air. Warner Bros. Discovery has been making significant cutbacks under David Zaslav, and this could be a signal the company may be exiting the first-run business as daytime syndication ratings continue to crater. If Fox stations drop her show (it airs weekdays at 11 a.m. on Fox 32), it’s unlikely it would be picked up by another station group given the only other option in a top three market (Nexstar) would not be viable given Chicago’s WGN-TV no longer airs first-run strips.
Other shows on the bubble include Trifecta Entertainment’s freshman strip Crime Expose with Nancy O’Dell; even though it’s not mentioned in the article, Fox First-Run’s 25 Words Or Less and Divorce Court could also be on the bubble. Fox stated TMZ and spin-off TMZ Live and Debmar-Mercury’s Sherri are safe and will return next season.
The Fox game shows’ cancellations come at a time when the genre is experiencing a surge in popularity with the continued success of Wheel Of Fortune, Jeopardy, Family Feud, and newbie Flipside, and the success of prime-time game shows including the celebrity versions of Wheel and Jeopardy, The Floor, and the Hollywood Squares reboot, but Pictionary and Person didn’t rank among the top five game shows in syndication. Another game show distributed by Fox, the You Bet Your Life revival with Jay Leno, was canceled in 2023 after two seasons due to the Writer’s Strike.
Pictionary and Person were tested on Fox stations before being rolled out nationally as both recently moved to Atlanta to cut down on production costs; CBS Media Ventures and Fox initially syndicated Pictionary before the former dropped out but still sold the national barter time. The show had two previous runs, a kids-targeted version hosted by now co-Paramount Global CEO Brian Robbins in 1989 and a 1997-98 version hosted by Alan Thicke. All three have aired locally on WPWR.
Dish Nation had several incarnations throughout the years, evolving from a show featuring radio personalities to a talk/entertainment panel show targeting Black audiences as the show was also aired over streamer Fox Soul and winding up in more late-night and early-morning time slots.
Only two new strips have been announced: game shows Perfect Line and Scrambled Up, and more could be coming in the months ahead as stations will need to find programming to replace the departing shows.