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Sliders (TV series)

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Sliders is an American science fiction and fantasy television series created by Robert K. Weiss and Tracy Tormé . It was broadcast for five seasons between 1995 and 2000. The series follows a group of travelers as they use a wormhole to "slide" between different parallel universes . Tracy Tormé , Robert K. Weiss , Leslie Belzberg , John Landis , David Peckinpah , Bill Dial, and Alan Barnette served as executive producers at different times of the production. For its first two seasons, it was produced in Vancouver, British Columbia . It was filmed primarily in Los Angeles, California , in the last three seasons.

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200-455: The first three seasons were broadcast by Fox . After being canceled by Fox, the series moved to Sci-Fi Channel for its final two seasons. The final episode was shown in February 2000. The show's titular characters are a group of people who travel ("slide") between different Earths in parallel universes via a vortex-like wormhole, activated by a handheld timer device. While the slide technology

400-787: A New York Times article claimed that Middle Eastern Armenians, which includes Armenians from Iran, preferred to settle in Glendale, California , while Armenian immigrants from the Soviet Union were attracted to Hollywood, Los Angeles. A study regarding Americans of Armenian descent showed that Armenians from Iran (Iranian-Armenians) are known for quick integration into American society: for example, only 31% of Armenian Americans born in Iran claim not to speak English well, while those Armenians from other nations were shown to have less success at integrating. The Small Business Administration (SBA) conducted

600-475: A blind trust and then sold directly to Fox due to conflicts with FCC ownership rules ], and one NBC affiliate ) that it had either already owned outright or was in the process of acquiring from Citicasters and Argyle Communications at the time to Fox starting in September 1994 and continuing as existing affiliation contracts with their existing major network partners expired. That summer, SF Broadcasting ,

800-589: A "founding benefactor" of the Houston Museum of Fine Arts . The George Bush Presidential Library has a gallery named after him. Iranians in Houston particularly came under the spotlight when Iranian student and activist Gelareh Bagherzadeh was murdered in Houston in 2012. The perpetrator, Ali Irsan , was later convicted and sentenced to death for the crime, an honor killing in retaliation against Bagherzadeh's encouragement of Irsan's daughter to leave Islam and marry

1000-548: A 20% stake in New World Communications , a television and film production company controlled by investor Ronald Perelman that had just recently entered into broadcasting through its 1993 purchase of seven stations owned by SCI Television . As a result of Fox acquiring a 20% minority interest in the company, New World signed an agreement to switch the affiliations of twelve stations (eight CBS affiliates, three ABC affiliates [ two of which were subsequently placed in

1200-1058: A 50% interest in TCF Holdings, the parent company of the 20th Century Fox film studio. In May 1985, News Corporation, a media company owned by Australian publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch that had mainly served as a newspaper publisher at the time of the TCF Holdings deal, agreed to pay $ 2.55 billion to acquire independent television stations in six major U.S. cities from the John Kluge -run broadcasting company Metromedia : WNEW-TV in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., KTTV in Los Angeles, KRIV-TV in Houston, WFLD -TV in Chicago, and KRLD-TV in Dallas. A seventh station, ABC affiliate WCVB-TV in Boston,

1400-477: A Christian man. The other notable Iranian in Texas that gained national attention in recent years was UT Austin 's Omid Kokabee who was imprisoned in Iran for political reasons. The Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area is estimated to have over 30,000 Iranian-Americans. Iran's first astronaut Anousheh Ansari for many years was a resident of Plano, Texas , a suburb of Dallas-Fort Worth . Dallas' Iranian community

1600-522: A Multi-Millionaire? , Temptation Island , Married by America , and Joe Millionaire (which became the first Fox program to crack the Nielsen Top 10), as well as video clip shows such as World's Wildest Police Videos and When Animals Attack! . After shedding most of these programs, Fox gradually filled its lineup with acclaimed dramas such as 24 , The O.C. , House , and Bones , and comedies such as The Bernie Mac Show , Malcolm in

1800-411: A book. That book is actually my book Hyperspace , but I take no responsibility for the physics behind that series." Before moving to Sci-Fi Channel each episode of the series cost $ 1.4 million to $ 1.5 million. While filming the episode "Desert Storm", actor Ken Steadman (Cutter) was killed. In an accident that occurred between takes, Steadman moved a dune buggy to the next shooting location. While he

2000-416: A collapse in viewership during the 2012–13 season ; American Idol and Glee suffered steep ratings declines, while the network as a whole fell to third place (suffering an overall decrease by 22%) in total viewership and to second place in the 18–49 demographic (where it remained as of 2014 ) by the end of the season. The decline in ratings continued into the 2013–14 season , with Fox placing fourth among

2200-895: A contract with the NFL to televise games from the National Football Conference (NFC)—which had been airing its games on CBS since 1956 —starting with the 1994 season . The initial four-year contract, which Fox bid $ 1.58 billion to obtain—while CBS offered $ 295 million per year to retain the rights —also included the exclusive U.S. television rights to Super Bowl XXXI in 1997 . The network also lured Pat Summerall , John Madden , Dick Stockton , Matt Millen , James Brown , Terry Bradshaw , and behind-the-scenes production personnel, from CBS Sports to staff its NFL coverage. Shortly afterward, News Corporation began striking affiliation deals with, and later purchasing, more television station groups. On May 23, 1994, Fox agreed to purchase

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2400-600: A cooperation rate of 31.2%. The margin of error for the results was +/- 5 percentage points, with higher margins of error for sub-groups. Notably, the number of Muslims decreased from 42% in 2008 to 31% in 2012. According to Harvard University 's Robert D. Putnam , the average Iranian is slightly less religious than the average American. In the book Social Movements in 20th Century Iran: Culture, Ideology, and Mobilizing Frameworks , author Stephen C. Poulson adds that Western ideas are making Iranians irreligious . There are religious and ethnolinguistic differences among

2600-552: A default Fox affiliate at the time; it would manage to reach a total of 1.3 million subscribers by 1992. As Fox gradually headed towards carrying a full week's worth of programming in prime time through the addition of programming on Thursday and Friday nights at the start of the 1990–91 season , the network's added offerings included the scheduling of The Simpsons opposite veteran NBC sitcom The Cosby Show as part of Fox's initial Thursday night lineup that fall (along with future hit Beverly Hills, 90210 , which would become

2800-449: A device that tells them where and when the next Doorway opens. Although scripts for six additional episodes after the pilot film were completed, Doorways never went to series, as ABC decided to launch Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman instead in the fall of 1993. At the time of Sliders' launch, Evelyn C. Leeper noted the similarities to Doorways , and in response to rumors that Sliders creator Tracy Tormé applied for

3000-529: A few successful shows like the science fiction drama The X-Files , Fox still lacked credibility among viewers. Even those working in television thought of the network as "the one that has that cartoon show" ( The Simpsons ). More than 85% of affiliates in 1993 were UHF stations. Fox became a viable competitor to the older networks when it won broadcast television rights to the National Football League (NFL) away from CBS . In December 1993, Fox signed

3200-454: A few weeks, however, and the network was unable to reach a deal with Hall to return as host when it hurriedly revived The Late Show in early 1988. The Late Show went back to featuring guest hosts, eventually selecting Ross Shafer as its permanent host, only for it to be canceled for good by October 1988, while Hall signed a deal with Paramount Television to develop his own syndicated late night talk show, The Arsenio Hall Show . Fox aired

3400-442: A first-run series on Comedy Central , where it ran from 2010 to 2013. Less successful efforts included The Critic , starring Saturday Night Live alumnus Jon Lovitz (which Fox picked up in 1994 after it was cancelled by ABC, only for the series to be cancelled again after its second season), and The PJs (which moved to The WB in 2000, after Fox cancelled that series after its second season). Other notable shows that debuted in

3600-519: A five-year contract valued at $ 205 million per-year. The network also began to increase its non-scripted output, announcing the new celebrity music competition series The Masked Singer (based on the South Korean format King of Mask Singer ), and the new game shows Mental Samurai and Spin the Wheel for the 2018–19 season. In August 2018, Fox Television Group CEO Dana Walden stated that

3800-505: A fourth network had failed because it programmed just under the number of hours defined by the FCC to legally be considered a network. This allowed Fox to make revenue in ways forbidden to the established networks (for instance, it did not have to adhere to the Financial Interest and Syndication Rules that were in effect at the time), since during its first years it was considered to be merely

4000-472: A half-hour series as part of the network's mainly comedy-based Sunday lineup for its first season, before expanding to an hour and moving to Fridays for the 1990–91 season). These two series, which would become staples on the network for just over two decades, would eventually be paired to form the nucleus of Fox's Saturday night schedule beginning in the 1994–95 season . Meanwhile, Married... with Children , which differentiated itself from other family sitcoms of

4200-647: A hostile ice-covered Earth. Quinn is forced to activate the vortex prematurely to save them, and they find themselves unable to return to their Earth. So not to be stranded on any alternate Earth for over 20 years, the group continues to slide between worlds, many of them involving alternate histories , such as if the British had won the Revolutionary War, or if antibiotics had never been discovered. The group continues to slide between alternate Earths, exploring further alternate timelines and more fantastical variations from

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4400-551: A joint venture between Fox and Savoy Pictures that was founded in March 1994, purchased four stations from Burnham Broadcasting ( three NBC affiliates and one ABC affiliate ); through a separate agreement, those stations would also switch to Fox between September 1995 and January 1996 as existing affiliation agreements lapsed. These two deals were not the first instances in which a longtime "Big Three" station affiliated with Fox: in Miami,

4600-503: A large group of stations. By comparison, DuMont had been saddled by numerous regulatory barriers that hampered its potential to grow, most notably a ban on acquiring additional stations, during an era when the FCC had much tighter ownership limits for television stations (limiting broadcasters to a maximum of five stations nationwide) than it did when Fox launched. In addition, Murdoch was more than willing to open his wallet to get and keep programming and talent. DuMont, in contrast, operated on

4800-409: A large loyal fanbase that turned the show into a cult favorite. In 2009, Glee premiered to average ratings when its pilot aired as a lead-out program of the eighth-season finale of American Idol , but earned positive reviews from critics. The cast of the series has been acknowledged by Barack Obama and Oprah Winfrey , who have each asked the cast to perform live for various national events. At

5000-500: A large, loyal international fanbase. At the same time, Fox's live telecast of the Super Bowl XLV helped the network emerge as the first U.S. television network to earn an average single-night prime time audience of at least 100 million viewers. American Idol lost its first place standing among all network prime time programs during the 2011–12 finale (falling to second that season behind NBC Sunday Night Football ), ending

5200-413: A master's or doctoral degree, the highest rate among 67 ethnic groups studied. A 1990 University of California, Los Angeles study showed that by virtue of education and occupation, native-born and Armenian-Americans of Iranian origin "tend to have the highest socioeconomic status... while those from Turkey have the lowest", although Turkish Armenians boast the highest rate of self-employment. In 1988,

5400-469: A mediocre ratings performance, before viewership rose significantly midway through its first season following Heather Locklear 's addition to the cast), its own short lived spin-off Models Inc. , and family drama Party of Five . The early and mid-1990s also saw the network launch several series aimed at a black audience, which, in addition to Martin , included the sitcom Living Single and police procedural New York Undercover . Despite having

5600-489: A new but short-lived sitcom ( Love and Marriage ) to the night at the beginning of the 1996–97 season backfired with the public, as it resulted in a brief cancellation of America's Most Wanted that was criticized by law enforcement and public officials, and was roundly rejected by viewers, which brought swift cancellation to the newer series. Married... quickly returned to Sundays (before moving again to Mondays two months later); both it and Martin would end their runs at

5800-525: A non-Big Three network on primetime). By 2016, Empire and The X-Files ranked in the Nielsen Top 10 for the season, the first season with 2 Fox programs entering the top rankings since the American Idol - House tandem of the 2007–2008 season (and the first ever season that Fox achieved such rankings without American Idol or any other reality television show from Fox in the Top 10). The same year also marked

6000-530: A professional singer who is accidentally caught in the first major test of the vortex. Over the course of the show, cast members departed and were replaced by others: Captain Maggie Beckett ( Kari Wuhrer ), a military officer from one doomed alternate Earth; Colin Mallory ( Charlie O'Connell ), Quinn's lost brother; a second Quinn Mallory ( Robert Floyd ) that resulted from the original Quinn inadvertently merging with

6200-411: A raise. Her character's fate—to be trapped in a Kromagg breeding camp—was allegedly Peckinpah's idea, and one that was pushed through by him alone. As a result of public pressure to elaborate on what happened to Wade after she disappeared, the producers asked Lloyd to guest star in one season five episode that was to focus entirely on Wade (without the rest of the cast). Lloyd requested $ 40,000 to appear,

Sliders (TV series) - Misplaced Pages Continue

6400-794: A result of the Iranian Revolution and the fall of the Iranian monarchy , with over 40% settling in California, specifically Los Angeles. They have created many distinct ethnic enclaves, such as the Los Angeles Tehrangeles community in Westwood, Los Angeles . Based on a 2012 announcement by the National Organization for Civil Registration, an organization of the Ministry of Interior of Iran ,

6600-443: A second-tier independent station in markets where a more established independent declined the affiliation (such as Denver , Phoenix and St. Louis ). Largely because of both these factors, Fox in a situation very similar to what DuMont had experienced four decades before had little choice but to affiliate with UHF stations in all except a few (mainly larger) markets where the network gained clearance. Then-Fox Inc. head Barry Diller

6800-597: A series of affiliation realignments between all four U.S. television networks involving individual stations and various broadcasting groups such as those between CBS and Group W (whose corporate parent later bought the network in August 1995), and ABC and the E. W. Scripps Company (which owned three Fox affiliates that switched to either ABC or NBC as a result of the New World deal) affecting 30 television markets between September 1994 and September 1996. The two deals also had

7000-414: A shoestring budget and was unable to keep the programs and stars it had. Most of the other startup networks that launched in later years (such as UPN and The WB ) followed Fox's model as well. Furthermore, DuMont operated during a time when the FCC did not require television manufacturers to include UHF capability. To see DuMont's UHF stations, most people had to buy an expensive converter . Even then,

7200-561: A small portion of its population to a safe dimension; however, the exodus is betrayed by a new enemy in Colonel Rickman who needs brain fluid to survive a disease he obtained in a gulf war. While protecting Quinn Prof. Arturo sacrifices himself. The group, now joined by Captain Maggie Beckett, pursue Rickman to acquire a Timer he stole with Earth Prime's location saved into it. While Wade and Rembrandt make it back, Quinn and Maggie end up stuck on another alternate Earth. Quinn and Maggie find

7400-402: A study that found Iranian immigrants among the top 20 immigrant groups with the highest rate of business ownership, contributing substantially to the U.S. economy. According to the report, there were 33,570 active and contributing Iranian American business owners in the U.S., with a 21.5% business ownership rate. The study also found that the total net business income generated by Iranian Americans

7600-539: A three-way tie for 29th place in the Nielsen ratings, it became a breakout hit and was the first Fox series to break the Top 30. The Simpsons , at 35 years as of 2024, is the longest-running American sitcom, the longest-running American animated program, and the longest-running American scripted primetime television series. In 1989, Fox also first introduced the documentary series Cops and crime-focused magazine program America's Most Wanted (the latter of which debuted as

7800-484: A time, made Fox Television Stations the largest owner of television stations in the U.S. (a title that has since been assumed by the Sinclair Broadcast Group , one of the network's largest affiliate groups). Fox completed its prime time expansion to all seven nights on January 19, 1993 , with the launch of two additional nights of programming on Tuesdays and Wednesdays (The method of gradually adding nights to

8000-514: A way to return to Earth Prime, but they find it taken over by the Kromaggs; they are able to rescue Rembrandt but not Wade. Quinn's mother tells him he is actually adopted, born from parents that knew of sliding technology and used it to hide him from the Kromaggs. She also tells him where to find his brother, Colin, who then joins the Sliders. The group continue to slide, hoping to find a means to deal with

8200-498: A way to stop the Kromaggs. Ultimately, they discover a contagious virus, deadly to Kromaggs. After the timer is destroyed, they find they can send one slider back to Earth Prime. Rembrandt injects himself with the virus and jumps through, leaving the three unsure of his fate. The Fox Network aired certain episodes from seasons one and two in a different order than originally scripted to best capitalize on potential ratings-winning episodes, thus causing some continuity errors. For instance,

Sliders (TV series) - Misplaced Pages Continue

8400-466: A week earlier. For season two, Fox did not want to resolve the cliffhanger at the end of "Luck of the Draw", preferring to focus instead on brand-new storylines. Thus, in "Time Again and World" (the first episode filmed for Season Two), Arturo makes a brief passing reference to the events of "Luck of the Draw." This missed cliffhanger was particularly significant as the episode had ended with Quinn being shot in

8600-538: A writing position on the show, Martin clarified in a 1995 post on GEnie that it was Tormé's agent that inquired about the position, and Tormé has denied any connection between the two. Fox Broadcasting Company Fox Broadcasting Company, LLC (commonly known simply as Fox and stylized in all caps ) is an American commercial broadcast television network owned by the Fox Entertainment division of Fox Corporation , headquartered at 1211 Avenue of

8800-565: Is Iranian Assyrian. Kings Point, New York , a village in Great Neck , New York, is said to have the largest concentration of Iranians in the United States (nearly 30%). However, unlike the population in Los Angeles, the Great Neck population is almost exclusively Jewish . Nashville, Tennessee has the largest Kurdish population in the United States, with many of them coming from Iran. It

9000-622: Is a problem of underrepresenting due to the fact that "many community members have been reluctant in identifying themselves as such because of the problems between Iran and the United States in the past two decades." and also because many were ethnic minorities (Jewish, Armenian, and Assyrian Iranians) who instead identify as the ethnic group they are part of rather than as Iranians. Estimates of 1,000,000 and above are given by many Iranian and non-Iranian organizations, media, and scholars. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and part of

9200-598: Is not indicative of the entire United States, merely of the areas in which most of the Iranian-American population is concentrated. Though Iranian-Americans have historically excelled in business, academia, and the sciences, they have traditionally shied away from participating in American politics or other civic activities. Iranian-Americans do not appear to engage in American politics, as demonstrated by survey results from large cities showing only 10 percent of them voted in

9400-542: Is part of the reason so many Iranians began to flee to America. The third phase of Iranian immigration started in 1995 and continues to the present. According to the 2000 US Census , there were 283,225 Iranian-born people in the US. According to the same 2000 US Census, there were 385,488 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. The 2011 American Community Survey (ACS) estimate found 470,341 Americans with full or partial Iranian ancestry. However, most experts believe that this

9600-399: Is regarded as more inclusive than "Persian", as the term "Persian" excludes non-Persian ethnic minorities of Iran. While the majority of Iranian-Americans come from Persian backgrounds, there is a significant number of non-Persian Iranians such as Azeris and Kurds within the Iranian-American community, leading some scholars to believe that the label "Iranian" is more inclusive, since

9800-508: Is still debated today. There is a tendency among Iranian-Americans to categorize themselves as "Persian" rather than "Iranian", mainly to dissociate themselves from the negative stereotypes of Iranians in media. Some Iranian-Americans also don't prefer "Iranian" to disassociate themselves with the Islamic Republic of Iran , yet this rationale has been criticized as the term "Iran" was widely used before 1979 as well. The term "Iranian"

10000-440: Is the most-watched program on U.S. television by seasonal average viewership in the 2000s decade, as well as the most recent program scheduled to have successfully established a graveyard slot on U.S. television since the end of NBC's Friends in 2004 and the subsequent decline of NBC's previously dominant " Must See TV " Thursday timeblock. By 2005, reality television succeeded sitcoms as the most popular form of entertainment in

10200-461: Is their original one. Failing to use the vortex to slide at that point would mean they would be stuck in that universe for nearly three decades until they can open the vortex again. While waiting for the timer countdown, the Sliders frequently explore the nature of the alternate universe and often become caught up in events of that world. Some of these universes are based on alternate timelines in which certain historical events happened differently from

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10400-464: Is widely believed that most Iranian-Americans in the United States are clustered in the large cities of California, namely Greater Los Angeles , the San Francisco Bay Area , San Diego , Sacramento , and Fresno . According to extrapolated U.S. Census data and other independent surveys done by Iranian-Americans themselves in 2009, there were an estimated one million Iranian-Americans living in

10600-456: The 1997–98 season , Fox had three shows in the Nielsen Top 20 (in terms of total viewers); The X-Files (which ranked 11th), King of the Hill (which ranked 15th) and The Simpsons (which ranked 18th), all of which aired on Sunday nights. Building around its flagship animated comedy The Simpsons , Fox would experience relative success with animated sitcoms in prime time, beginning with the debut of

10800-539: The 2010 United States Census was not according to race, but rather ancestry, which is collected by the annual American Community Survey (ACS). Data on Iranian ancestry from the annual ACS is available on the Census Bureau's American Factfinder website. Racially, on the Census, Iranian Americans have been classified as a white American group. Most experts believe that the underrepresented number of Iranian Americans in

11000-705: The 39th Primetime Emmy Awards and would air the next five editions. Although the network had modest successes in Married... with Children and The Tracy Ullman Show , several affiliates were disappointed with Fox's largely underperforming programming lineup during the network's first three years, KMSP-TV in Minneapolis and KPTV in Portland, Oregon , both owned at the time by Chris-Craft Television , disaffiliated from Fox in 1988 (with KITN (now WFTC ) and KPDX respectively replacing those stations as Fox affiliates), citing that

11200-490: The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) to protect rights held by domestically based networks. Fox is named after the film studio that was originally called 20th Century Fox (the network's corporate sibling prior to that studio's acquisition by The Walt Disney Company ) and after the producer William Fox , who had founded one of the film studio's predecessors, Fox Film , before it

11400-641: The Congressional Research Service , in December 2015 estimated the number at over 1,000,000. Paul Harvey and Edward Blum of the University of Colorado and the University of San Diego in 2012 estimated their number at 1,000,000, as well as Al-Jazeera . According to the PAAIA (Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans), estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000, numbers backed up by Ronald H. Bayor of

11600-709: The Fox Television Stations group. With the sole exception of KDAF (which was sold to Renaissance Broadcasting in 1995, at which time it became an affiliate of The WB ), all of the original owned-and-operated stations ("O&Os") are still part of the Fox network today. Like the core O&O group, Fox's affiliate body initially consisted of independent stations (a few of which had maintained affiliations with ABC, NBC, CBS, or DuMont earlier in their existences). The local charter affiliate was, in most cases, that market's top-rated independent; however, Fox opted to affiliate with

11800-601: The Georgia Institute of Technology as well. The Atlantic stated that there were an estimated 1,500,000 Iranians in the United States in 2012. The Iranian interest section in Washington, D.C., in 2003 claimed to hold passport information for approximately 900,000 Iranians in the US. Today, the United States contains the highest number of Iranians outside of Iran. The Iranian-American community has produced individuals notable in many fields , including medicine, engineering, and business. Although Iranians have lived in

12000-477: The Iranian Revolution , which included a disproportionate share of Iran's religious minorities, as well as subsequent ex-Muslim asylum seekers and other conversions away from Islam. Many Iranian Americans identify as irreligious or Shiite , but a full one-fifth are Christians , Jews , Baháʼís , or Zoroastrians . Additionally, there are also some Iranian Mandaeans , but they are very small in number. According to Pew Research, about 22% of those who left Islam in

12200-646: The Mike Judge -produced King of the Hill in 1997. Family Guy (the first of three adult-oriented animated series from Seth MacFarlane to air on the network) and Futurama (from Simpsons creator Matt Groening ) would make their debuts in 1999; however, they were canceled in 2002 and 2003 respectively. Due to strong DVD sales and highly rated cable reruns on Cartoon Network 's Adult Swim , Fox later decided to order new episodes of Family Guy , which began airing in 2005. Futurama would be revived with four direct-to-DVD films between 2007 and 2009 and would return as

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12400-423: The Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Iran have stated the United States has the highest number of Iranians outside the country , stating 1,500,000 Iranians who were born in Iran are living in the U.S. However this number only represents Iranian born population who moved to the U.S. at some point and does not include the number of U.S.-born Iranian-Americans and other groups with Iranian ancestors. Roughly half of

12600-664: The NTA Film Network was launched as a new "fourth network". 20th Century Fox would also produce original content for the NTA network. The film network effort would fail after a few years, but 20th Century Fox continued to dabble in television through its production arm, TCF Television Productions, producing series (such as Perry Mason , Batman and M*A*S*H ) for the three major broadcast television networks (ABC, NBC, and CBS). The Fox network's foundations were laid in March 1985 through News Corporation 's $ 255 million purchase of

12800-417: The PAAIA (Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans), estimates range from 500,000 to 1,000,000, numbers backed by Ronald H. Bayor of the Georgia Institute of Technology . The Atlantic , in 2012, stated that there are an estimated 1,500,000 Iranians in the United States. The Iranian interest section in Washington D.C., in 2003, claimed to hold passport information for approximately 900,000 Iranians in

13000-557: The Sasanian Empire , in formal correspondence. Since then the use of the word "Iran" has become more common in Western countries. This also changed the usage of the terms for Iranian nationality, and the common adjective for citizens of Iran changed from "Persian" to "Iranian." In 1959, the government of Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , Reza Shah Pahlavi's son, announced that both "Persia" and "Iran" could officially be used interchangeably. The issue

13200-649: The USSR , 11.5% in Lebanon , 9.7% in Turkey , 11.7% in other Middle Eastern countries (Egypt, Iraq , Israel , etc.), and the rest in other parts of the world. Beverly Hills , Irvine , and Glendale all have large communities of Iranian Americans (much of the Iranian population in Glendale being of Armenian descent); 26% of the total population of Beverly Hills is Iranian Jewish , making it

13400-437: The finale of American Idol in its original run on Fox after airing for fifteen seasons, ending an era of one of the most successful shows in U.S. television history. In February 2017, Fox broadcast Super Bowl LI , which attracted an average 111.3 million viewers—ranking among the top five most-watched Super Bowl games, and the second-highest audience in network history behind Super Bowl XLVIII. In March 2017, Rob Wade

13600-496: The longest streak at#1 for a prime time broadcast network series in U.S. television history, through its eight-year ratings domination in both the Adults 18–49 demographic and total viewership. Idol also remained in the Nielsen Top 10 for eleven years from 2003 to 2013 , and became the highest-rated non- sports prime time television program as well as the highest-rated reality series in the U.S. from 2003 to 2012. these records marked

13800-522: The second most-watched television broadcast (by average) in U.S. history, and the lead-out programs that followed this event – New Girl and Brooklyn Nine-Nine . Later, in May 2014, Kevin Reilly announced that he would resign as chairman of Fox Entertainment. On July 15, 2014, then-corporate parent 21st Century Fox announced that it would merge the operations of the network and 20th Century Fox Television into

14000-461: The 1979 revolution were mostly experienced physicians who came with their families and an intent to stay permanently. As of 2013 , there are 5,050 Iranian medical school graduates in the United States. Prior to the revolution, the 1,626 physicians migrated to the United States were 15% of all Iranian medical school graduates, while the 5,045 medical graduates who migrated post-Islamic Revolution represent only 5% of total Iranian medical graduates. This

14200-426: The 1979 revolution. About 50 percent of all working Iranian Americans are in professional and managerial occupations, a percentage greater than any other group in the United States (Bayor, 2011). The earliest Iranian people in the U.S. were mostly young trainees who worked as medical interns or residents. Some established themselves to continue practice beyond the residency stage. Their motives to extend their stay in

14400-409: The 70s, it enabled many more Iranians to travel abroad freely. Consequently, the number of Iranian visitors to the United States also increased considerably, from 35,088, in 1975, to 98,018, in 1977. During the 1977–78 academic year, of about 100,000 Iranian students abroad, 36,220 were enrolled in American institutions of higher learning. During the 1978–79 academic year, on the eve of the revolution,

14600-661: The ACS is a problem due to the fact that "many community members have been reluctant in identifying themselves as such because of the problems between Iran and the United States in the past two decades." Estimations of 1,000,000 and above are given by many Iranian and non-Iranian organizations, media, and scholars. Kenneth Katzman, specialist in Middle Eastern affairs and part of the Congressional Research Service , estimated their number at over 1,000,000 in published December 2015. Historians Paul Harvey and Edward Blum estimate their number at 1,000,000 in 2012, as well as Al-Jazeera . According to

14800-784: The Americas in Midtown Manhattan . Fox hosts additional offices at the Fox Network Center in Los Angeles and at the Fox Media Center in Tempe, Arizona . Launched as a competitor to the Big Three television networks ( ABC , CBS , and NBC ) in 1986, Fox went on to become the most successful attempt at a fourth television network . It was also the highest- rated free-to-air network in the 18–49 demographic from 2004 to 2012 and 2020 to 2021, and

15000-448: The Earth they know. On one slide, they encounter the Kromaggs, an alien species that have perfected sliding and use it to strip resources from alternate earths. The Kromaggs become aggressively curious about Quinn's technology. As they continue to slide, hoping to return to their prime dimension, the Sliders land on an Earth that is doomed by a passing pulsar , they provide a means to evacuate

15200-557: The Federal Communications Commission (FCC)'s rules prohibiting a merger between any of the four major broadcast networks. As a result of the Disney/Fox deal, and with the merger of CBS and Viacom on December 4, 2019, Fox has become the only major U.S. broadcast network without attachment to any film studio . It was acknowledged that Fox had placed a larger emphasis on its sports programming in its first upfronts since

15400-540: The Fox network is a revival or at least a linear descendant of DuMont, since Metromedia was founded when DuMont spun off its two remaining owned-and-operated stations, WNEW-TV (then known as WABD) and WTTG, as DuMont Broadcasting (it later changed its name to Metropolitan Broadcasting before becoming Metromedia). Additionally, the former base of DuMont's operations, the DuMont Tele-Centre in Manhattan , eventually became

15600-467: The Iranian American community, most notably Baháʼís, Jews, Armenians, and Assyrians. According to the 1980 US Census , there were 123,000 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. Between 1980 and 1990, the number of foreign-born people from Iran in the United States increased by 74 percent. The revolution caused a drastic change in the Iranian culture. Iran was no longer a thriving country. This

15800-460: The Kromaggs on Earth Prime and in other dimensions. In what at first appears to be a freak sliding accident, Quinn merges with the Quinn of the dimension they have slid into, merging them into "Mallory", while Colin is lost to the vortex, as explained to them by Dr. Diana Davis, a scientist studying transdimensional travel. She later slides with Mallory, Maggie, and Rembrandt as they continue to search for

16000-531: The Living Dead and even one like The Island of Doctor Moreau , using the film's original masks!" He found the writers were just "looting" these ideas rather than using these as a tribute, pointing to one episode in which Quinn needed to cross an invisible bridge and on approaching the writer about it, discovered he had never seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade which Rhys-Davies had starred in and simply used

16200-473: The Middle , and Arrested Development . As the decade wore on, Fox began surpassing ABC and NBC in the ratings, first in age demographics, then in overall viewership, and placed second behind a resurgent CBS in total viewership, beginning in 2002 . Fox hit a major milestone in 2005 when it emerged as the most-watched U.S. broadcast network in the lucrative 18–49 demographic for the first time, largely boosted by

16400-915: The Muslim, Jewish, Baháʼí, Zoroastrian, Christian, Armenian , Azerbaijani , Kurdish , and Assyrian groups. Calculating the percentage of Christian Iranian-Americans is difficult because most Iranian Christians (especially those raised in the faith) are of Armenian or Assyrian origin; and, apart from identifying as Iranian, a number amongst them also strongly self-identifies as Armenian or Assyrian, rather than as (or apart from) Iranian. The majority of Iranian-Americans are ethnic Persians , with sizeable ethnic minorities being Iranian Azerbaijanis , Armenians , Iranian Jews , Kurds , Assyrians , Mandaeans , Turkmen , Baloch , Arabs , among others. According to Hakimzadeh and Dixon in 2006, members of religious and ethnic minorities such as Baháʼís, Jews, Armenians, and Assyrians were disproportionately represented amongst

16600-472: The PAAIA, is likely because, as a group, they are more likely to adhere to traditional Iranian values, including making marriages that are approved by their families and are within Iranian cultural norms. Regarding language proficiency in the United States among its immigrant groups, the first generation principally speaks their native language, the second generation speaks both English and their parents' language, and

16800-840: The Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans (PAAIA) in 2008, only 21 percent of Iranian-Americans reported interacting mostly with other Iranian Americans outside of their workplace, demonstrating that most of them have successfully integrated into United States society. The intermarriage rate is very high among Iranian Americans. It has been estimated that nearly 50 percent of Iranian-Americans who married between 1995 and 2007 married non-Iranian Americans. Research has furthermore indicated that Iranian-Americans who are Muslim are more open to intermarry than those who are members of religious or ethnic minorities, such as Jews and Armenians. Compared to men, Iranian women are less likely to mix or intermarry outside their group, which, according to

17000-497: The Quinn of a world they slid into, and Dr. Diana Davis ( Tembi Locke ), a scientist who attempts to help them reverse the process. * While Sabrina Lloyd returned as a guest, she provided only the voice for her character, played by a barely-visible body-double. Michio Kaku explains in the appendix of his book, The Future of the Mind , that the Sliders series began "when a young boy read

17200-486: The Sci Fi Channel had was that a gun couldn't be pointed at a person's head. To test this rule, executive producer Bill Dial presented a script featuring a character getting his head shot completely off—which was ignored. Dial then presented the script for the final episode cliffhanger, which was also ignored. Some claim this was done to encourage fans to push for a sixth season, but members of the production team claim that

17400-456: The Storm", while the last episode ended with an unresolved cliffhanger. Insiders have various theories as to why this happened. The producers were concerned the Sci Fi Channel had lost interest in the show (even though it was their highest-rated program at the time) after they ceased supplying corrective notes for the episodes, and it was believed they were not even reading the scripts. One strict rule

17600-543: The U.S. Census in 2000. Second generation Iranians located outside these concentrated cities showed high rates of marrying a non-Iranian and low literacy rates in Persian . In San Diego County, the communities of La Jolla and Westlake village also held a large Iranian population. La Jolla was the first American city to have an Iranian American mayor Iraj Broomand. Texas also has a large population of Iranian descent. And like California, Iranians in Texas are concentrated in

17800-403: The U.S. as a result of Fox's rise with American Idol and NBC's network declines. House , which aired as American Idol ' s lead-out program on Tuesday nights, earned international prominence in the 21st century and became Fox's first prime time drama series (and the network's third program overall) to reach the Nielsen Top 10 beginning 2006 . Beginning 2004 , CBS and Fox, which ranked as

18000-520: The U.S., with the largest concentration—about 300,000 people—living in the greater Los Angeles area. For this reason, the Westwood, L.A. area, with its Iranian American residents, is sometimes colloquially referred to as " Tehrangeles ", "Irangeles", or "Little Persia" among Iranian-Americans. In 1985, the Los Angeles Times estimated 200,000 Iranian Americans were living in California; and by 1991

18200-566: The US. According to research done by the Iranian Studies Group, an independent academic organization at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Iranian Americans are most likely far more numerous in the United States than census data indicate. The group estimates that the number of Iranian Americans may have topped 691,000 in 2004—more than twice the figure of 338,000 cited in the 2000 U.S. census . Sources from

18400-505: The United States are Iranian Americans. A 2012 national telephone survey of a sample of 400 Iranian-Americans, commissioned by the Public Affairs Alliance of Iranian Americans and conducted by Zogby Research Services, asked the respondents what their religions were. The responses broke down as follows: Muslim 31%, atheist / realist / humanist 11%, agnostic 8%, Baháʼí 7%, Jewish 5%, Protestant 5%, Roman Catholic 2%, Zoroastrian 2%, "Other" 15%, and "No response" 15%. The survey had

18600-436: The United States has the greatest number of Iranians outside the country . Iranian Americans are among the most highly educated people in the United States . They have historically excelled in business, academia, science, the arts, and entertainment. Many have become doctors, engineers, lawyers, and tech entrepreneurs. Research by the Iranian Studies Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2004 estimated

18800-583: The United States in relatively small numbers since the 1930s, a large number of Iranian-Americans immigrated to the United States after the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Data on this group is well documented by the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS). According to the 2000 US Census , there were 385,488 Americans of Iranian ancestry at that time. In the 2011 ACS , the number of Americans of full or partial Iranian ancestry amounted c. 470,341. Federal data on Iranian Americans in

19000-527: The United States were more for professional than economic reasons. Researchers from Johns Hopkins University in 1974 reported, in the Journal of the American Medical Association , that, in 1971, the number of Iranian physicians in the U.S. was 1,625. The authors further studied the causes for immigration by sending questionnaire to all Iranian MDs in the United States. According to the 660 respondents,

19200-576: The United States who chose not to return home, created a large pool of highly educated and skilled Iranian professionals in the United States. By 2002, an estimated 1.5 to 2.5 million Iranians lived abroad, mainly in North America and Europe, due to the Islamic government's authoritarian practices. A further notable aspect of the migration in this phase is that members of religious and ethnic minorities were starting to become disproportionally represented among

19400-420: The United States. Four benchmarks are traditionally used to measure assimilation: language proficiency, intermarriage, spatial concentration, and socio-economic status. Per these criteria, one can determine with a significant degree of confidence that the Iranian-American community has made significant strides in successfully assimilating to a new culture and way of living. According to a survey commissioned by

19600-472: The United States. By the mid-1970s, nearly half of all Iranian students who studied abroad did so in the United States. By 1975, the Institute of International Education's annual foreign student census figures listed Iranian students as the largest group of foreign students in the United States, amounting to a total of 9% of all foreign students in the country. As the Iranian economy continued to rise steadily in

19800-613: The advantage of offering programs intended to appeal toward a younger demographic – adults between 18 and 34 years of age – and that were edgier in content, whereas some programs that were carried by the "Big Three" networks attracted an older-skewing audience. Until the early 1990s, when Fox expanded its programming to additional nights and outside prime time, most Fox stations were still essentially formatted as independent stations – filling their schedules with mainly first-run and acquired programming, and, during prime time, running either syndicated programs or, more commonly, movies on nights when

20000-598: The affiliation moved from WCIX (channel 6) to NBC affiliate WSVN in January 1989 as the result of a complicated six-station affiliation swap in two South Florida markets spurred by NBC's purchase of CBS affiliate WTVJ (channel 4) and CBS's purchase of WCIX. WSVN immediately attracted industry notice for featuring a news-intensive tabloid format uncharacteristic of any Fox affiliate or independent station heretofore, with then-Fox network president Lucie Salhany calling WSVN "the future of television" in May 1994. WSVN remains

20200-464: The back. Tracy Tormé successfully petitioned for a chance to resolve the cliffhanger, though, which is briefly dealt with in the opening minutes of "Into the Mystic" (the third episode filmed, but the first to air that season) where the life-threatening wound is now merely a flesh wound in his shoulder, allowing for a quick recovery. "Time Again and World" ended up airing sixth in the rotation. "Double Cross"

20400-598: The basis of the cultural, economic, and social networks that would enable large-scale immigration in the years that followed. The second phase of Iranian migration began immediately before and after the Iranian Revolution of 1979 and the overthrow of the Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi , and became significant in the early 1980s. As Ronald H. Bayor writes, "The 1979 Revolution and the 1980–88 war with Iraq transformed Iran's class structure, politically, socially, and economically." The revolution drastically changed

20600-483: The beginning of the 2010s, new comedies Raising Hope and New Girl gave Fox its first live-action comedy successes in years. The second season of Glee delivered that series' highest ratings during the 2010–11 season, with viewership peaking during its Super Bowl lead-out episode in February 2011 (marking the most expensive post-Super Bowl episode ever produced on U.S. television). The said show has continuously attracted worldwide media attention that it formed

20800-435: The careers of future movie stars Jim Carrey , Jamie Foxx , Damon Wayans , Marlon Wayans , Keenen Ivory Wayans , guest stars Chris Rock and Tim Meadows , and both members of the show's dance troupe, the "Fly Girls", Rosie Perez and Jennifer Lopez . The series also gained international prominence after Fox aired a special live episode in January 1992 as an alternative to the halftime show during Super Bowl XXVI , which

21000-599: The city's largest religious community. Iranian Americans have formed ethnic enclaves in many affluent neighborhoods mostly in the Los Angeles metropolitan area. In Los Angeles , Iranians were concentrated in Tarzana , West Hills , Hidden Hills , Woodland Hills , Beverly Hills , Calabasas , Brentwood , and Rancho Palos Verdes . Tarzana has the highest concentration of Iranians in Los Angeles County, according to

21200-461: The complete series on DVD on October 4, 2016. The 15-disc set contains all 5 seasons of the series in correct story order . November 13, 2019 (Re-Release) On August 23, 2007, Netflix Instant View started providing all five seasons of Sliders available for streaming. Two season 1 episodes ("Last Days", and "The Weaker Sex") are missing with a note in their place stating that the DVD is required to view

21400-450: The course of a single season, as well as Fox's fourth program overall (and the first since the 2013 finale of American Idol ) to enter the Nielsen Top 10 by the end of the 2014–15 season. The 2015–16 season marked a notable turnaround for Fox, as it jumped ahead of ABC to third place in nationwide ratings (both in overall viewership and in the 18–49 demo) and posted several firsts for the network and on U.S. television. Its improvement

21600-538: The deal was announced, including the acquisitions of the NFL's Thursday Night Football package and rights to the FIFA World Cup . It was also noted that Fox had been increasingly pivoting towards programs that could generate large audiences, as opposed to ones that become successful primarily through critical acclaim. On June 27, 2018, WWE announced that SmackDown would move to Fox on Friday nights beginning October 4, 2019, following its run on USA Network , under

21800-439: The debut of MADtv on October 14, 1995; the sketch comedy series became a solid competitor to NBC's Saturday Night Live for over a decade and was the network's most successful late night program as well as one of its most successful Saturday night shows, running for 14 seasons until 2009. An attempt to make a larger effort to program Saturday nights by moving Married... with Children from its longtime Sunday slot and adding

22000-641: The debut of Fox News Channel in August 1996. Its sports operations expanded with the acquisition of controlling interests in several regional sports networks (including the Prime Network and SportsChannel ) between 1996 and 2000 to form Fox Sports Net (which launched in November 1996), its 2000 purchase of Speedvision (later Speed Channel, which was replaced in the United States by Fox Sports 1 in August 2013; however, it continues to exist in other North American and Caribbean countries as Fox Sports Racing ), and

22200-512: The decision was personal. Iranian-American director Reza Badiyi is credited with directing a number of the episodes in the fifth season, and his daughter, Mina Badiyi, makes a guest appearance in Episode 3, "Common Ground". Sliders had a turbulent history due to changes in the cast and crew through its run. Cleavant Derricks is the only cast member to stay with the series throughout its entire run. Derricks and Linda Henning (Mrs. Mallory) are

22400-524: The democratic ideals he read about and how his fellow Iranians were treated by their leaders. He began his travels as a 23-year-old looking for knowledge, to experience the lives of others, and to use that knowledge to help with Iran's progress. His stay in the United States lasted 10 years, and he traveled across the country from New York to San Francisco. He met a variety of influential American figures including President Ulysses S. Grant , who met with him on several occasions. On 26 May 1875, Hajj Sayyah became

22600-532: The early exiles of the 1978–1979 revolution. According to DHS , in 2015, 13,114 people born in Iran were issued green cards , while 13,298 were issued one in 2016. In 2015, 10,344 Iranians became naturalized, with a further 9,507 in 2016. Nearly all Iranians who reside in the United States are either citizens (81%) or permanent residents (15%) of the United States (2008 survey). Iranian-Americans regard their culture and heritage as an important component of their day-to-day life and their overall identity within

22800-436: The end of that season. The Saturday schedule was revised in November 1996, to feature one new and one encore episode of Cops , and the revived America's Most Wanted: America Fights Back . Cops and AMW remained the anchors of Fox's Saturday lineup, making it the most stable night in American broadcast television for over 14 years; both shows eventually were among the few first-run programs remaining on Saturday evenings across

23000-522: The episode's dialogue, but only appeared once. Fox did not believe she was "sexy" enough and requested she not appear again. Fox canceled the show after the third season, but it was later picked up by the Sci-Fi network. Jerry O'Connell felt that Sci-Fi was looking to maintain the action-based show with more emphasis on darker sci-fi elements. Lloyd decided not to return to the series when it was revived, according to her agency. A source came forward claiming Lloyd

23200-625: The episode. The first episode, "Pilot", is available both as one combined episode, and as two separate parts, "Pilot Part 1" and "Pilot Part 2". All episodes of the remaining seasons (2-5) are available for streaming. On March 12, 2008, Universal Studios added Sliders season one to their free online viewing service, Hulu . Season two was added on May 8, 2009, and season three was added on July 2, 2009. In late 2008, season five and eventually all five seasons were made available through iTunes TV Shows store. In August 2020, all episodes were available with free version of Peacock TV streamer , although

23400-427: The estimate jumped to 800,000, however the accuracy of these numbers could be debated due to a lack of data. In 1990, Los Angeles had a larger population of religious minorities than Muslims, who were the religious majority in Iran. Regarding Iranian-Americans of Armenian origin, the 1980 US Census put the number of Armenians living in Los Angeles at 52,400, of whom 71.9% were foreign born: 14.7% in Iran, 14.3% in

23600-419: The first Iranian to become an American citizen. He was imprisoned upon his return to Iran for taking a stand against living conditions there. He looked to the United States to protect him but to no avail. During the peak period of worldwide emigration to the United States (1842–1903), only 130 Iranian nationals were known to have immigrated. The first wave of Iranian migration to the United States occurred from

23800-519: The four major networks after decreasing prime time viewership – as more people opted to engage in leisure activities away from home rather than watch television on that night of the week led ABC, NBC and CBS to largely abandon first-run series on Saturdays (outside newsmagazines , sports and burned off prime time shows that failed on other nights) in favor of reruns and movies by the mid-2000s. America's Most Wanted ended its 22-year run on Fox in June 2011, and

24000-637: The game during the 1980s, several station groups like Media Central and Pappas Telecasting had avoided Fox when the network launched, but joined the network later on. The network had its " grand opening " when it expanded its programming into prime time on April 5, 1987, inaugurating its Sunday night lineup with the premieres of the sitcom Married... with Children and the sketch comedy series The Tracey Ullman Show . The premieres of both series were rebroadcast twice following their initial airings (at 7:00 p.m. and 7:30 pm. Eastern/Pacific, respectively) that night, which Jamie Kellner , who served as

24200-411: The highest-rated U.S. television program overall starting with the 2003–04 season , becoming the first reality singing competition series in the country to reach first place in the seasonal ratings. American Idol remains the most recent U.S. television program to date to lead the national prime time ratings and attract at least 30 million viewers for multiple and consecutive television seasons. It

24400-652: The history they know, such as one where penicillin was never discovered, or a world where America had lost the Revolutionary War ; while other worlds have entirely novel histories, such as one where time flowed in reverse, or where dinosaurs never became extinct. The main initial cast included Quinn Mallory ( Jerry O'Connell ), who created the Sliding technology, Professor Maximillian Arturo ( John Rhys-Davies ), Quinn's mentor; Wade Welles ( Sabrina Lloyd ), Quinn's friend; and Rembrandt "Cryin' Man" Brown ( Cleavant Derricks ),

24600-412: The idea instead of toying with the meta nature of the scene. For Rhys-Davies, "the breaking point for me was when I walked in and saw the writers sitting around looking at a DVD of Species which had just been released and saying: 'Look, we could take a bit of that scene there and a bit of that scene there.'" The series co-creator, Tracy Tormé, has often been critical of the direction the series took in

24800-509: The label "Persian" excludes non-Persian minorities. One of the first recorded Iranians to visit North America was Martin the Armenian, an Iranian-Armenian tobacco grower who settled in Jamestown, Virginia in 1618. Mirza Mohammad Ali , also known as Hajj Sayyah, was an Iranian who came to North America in the 1800s. He was inspired to travel around the world due to the contradiction between

25000-581: The larger major cities of the state. Houston has the largest population of Iranians and Iranian expats, with an estimated 70,000 residents (50,000 in 1994 ), mainly due to the Texas Medical Center and the presence of large energy companies. Houston contains an Iranian business district including shops and restaurants that has been dubbed "Little Persia" by the Houston Press . There are many Iranian Zoroastrians and Baháʼís living there. Some of

25200-526: The largest Fox affiliate in terms of market size to have entirely eschewed any prominent on-air branding with the network name. The NFC contract, in fact, was the impetus for the affiliation deal with New World and SF Broadcasting's purchase of the Burnham stations, as Fox sought to improve local coverage of its new NFL package by aligning the network with stations that had more established histories and advertiser value than its charter affiliates. The deals spurred

25400-399: The late 1940s to 1977, or 1979. The United States was an attractive destination for students, as American universities offered some of the best programs in engineering and other fields, and were eager to attract students from foreign countries. Iranian students, most of whom had learned English as a second language in Iran, were highly desirable as new students at colleges and universities in

25600-515: The late 1990s included the quirky David E. Kelley -produced live-action dramedy Ally McBeal , the short-lived game show Greed , and the period comedy That '70s Show , the latter of which became Fox's second-longest-running live-action sitcom, airing for eight seasons. Throughout the 1990s and into the next decade, Fox launched a slate of cable channels beginning with the 1994 debuts of general entertainment network FX and movie channel FXM: Movies from Fox (now FX Movie Channel ), followed by

25800-466: The launches of Fox Sports World (later Fox Soccer , which was replaced by FXX in September 2013) and Fox Sports en Español (now Fox Deportes ) in the early 2000s. By 2000, many staple Fox shows of the 1990s had ended their runs. During the late 1990s and carrying over into the early 2000s, Fox put much of its efforts into producing reality shows many of which were considered to be sensationalistic and controversial in nature – such as Who Wants to Marry

26000-402: The longest Nielsen ratings streaks of any Fox program in these categories. The 2012 season finale of American Idol marked the end of the season-long 25th anniversary of the establishment of Fox network, helping it win in the 18–49 demographic for the eighth consecutive season, the longest such streak according to Nielsen measurement records (and still standing as of 2024). However, Fox suffered

26200-459: The main reasons for migration were mandatory two-years' military service, low salaries as compared to the United States, expensive housing, and socio-political reasons. In 2013, another report was published, in the Archive of Iranian Medicine (AIM), saying that, post-revolution, the number of Iranian medical school graduates in the United States had grown to 5,045. Those who migrated to the U.S. after

26400-482: The major networks in total viewership for the first time since 2001 . Subsequently, on January 13, 2014, Fox announced that it would abandon its use of the standard concept of greenlighting shows through the initial order of pilot episodes during the designated "pilot season" (running from January through April), instead opting to pick up shows directly to series. Fox scored renewed ratings successes with its February 2014 live telecast of Super Bowl XLVIII , which became

26600-497: The mass migration after the fall of the Shah . According to Bayor, from the very beginning, Iranian immigrants differed from other arrivals in their high educational and professional achievements. According to Census 2000 , 50.9 percent of Iranian immigrants have attained a bachelor's degree or higher, compared to a 28.0 percent national average. According to the latest census data available, more than one in four Iranian-Americans holds

26800-519: The middle east are settled in the San Antonio area. The Shah of Iran was also last hospitalized at San Antonio's Wilford Hall Ambulatory Surgical Center in Lackland Air Force Base during his last days. This is the same base that trained many pilots of Iran's Royal Air Force before the 1979 revolution. Many Iranian Americans are non-Muslim due to the religious composition of those fleeing

27000-530: The more well known residents of the Houston area in the past or present are Jasmin Moghbeli , Susan Roshan , Shawn Daivari , Farinaz Koushanfar , and Kavon Hakimzadeh (captain of the USS Harry Truman Naval aircraft carrier ). Ibrahim Yazdi was a graduate of Baylor College of Medicine and Kamal Kharazi also is an alumnus of University of Houston . Hushang Ansary , an active philanthropist, has been

27200-420: The most-watched television network overall in the United States, attributed to the strengths of Super Bowl XLII and its NFL game coverages, Idol and House during that season. To date, Fox is the only non-Big Three network to top the overall Nielsen ratings since its inception in the 1950–51 season . In the late 2000s, Fox launched a few series that proved to be powerful hits in different respects. In 2007,

27400-416: The movement of a considerable amount of wealth. During and after the revolution, most students did not return to Iran, and those who did were gradually purged from the newly established Islamic Republic . Many students who graduated abroad after the revolution also did not return, due to the ruling clergy's repression. As a result, the educated elite who left Iran after the revolution, and the new graduates in

27600-469: The nation's Iranians reside in the state of California alone. Other large communities include New York / New Jersey , which have 9.1% of the U.S.'s Iranian population, followed by Washington, D.C. / Maryland / Virginia (8.3%) and Texas (6.7%). Approximately 6,000–10,000 Iranian Americans reside in the city of Chicago , while up to 30,000 reside in the Chicago metropolitan area . Some of this population

27800-628: The nation's fourth major network. Fox Television Stations would acquire New World outright on July 17, 1996, in a $ 2.48 billion stock purchase, making the latter's twelve Fox affiliates owned-and-operated stations of the network; the deal was completed on January 22, 1997. Later, in August 2000, Fox bought several stations owned by Chris-Craft Industries and its subsidiaries BHC Communications and United Television for $ 5.5 billion (most of these stations were UPN affiliates, although its Minneapolis station KMSP-TV would rejoin Fox in September 2002 as an owned-and-operated station). These purchases, for

28000-465: The network began production on the game shows Are You Smarter than a 5th Grader? and Don't Forget the Lyrics! ; both shows ran for a total of three seasons each, making them the longest-running game shows in Fox's history. In 2008, the supernatural mystery series Fringe debuted to moderate ratings but earned critical acclaim during its first season on Tuesdays. Throughout its run, the series developed

28200-423: The network did not provide programming. Few Fox stations carried local newscasts during the network's early years, unlike the owned-and-operated stations and affiliates of its established rivals. Those that did were mostly based in larger markets (including some of the network's O&Os) and retained newscasts that had aired for decades. Even then, these news operations were limited to one newscast per day, following

28400-689: The network planned to commission and acquire more series from "independent" studios not co-owned with the Big Three networks, explaining that the vertical integration of the major broadcast networks (including Fox itself) with associated studios had limited opportunities for outside studios, and cited several top programs that were distributed by third-parties, such as The Big Bang Theory and This Is Us (produced by Warner Bros. Television and 20th Television for CBS and NBC respectively). There were also plans for Fox to acquire new pitches directly from their writers, and offer them to outside producers. As part of

28600-592: The network rolled out its Saturday night schedule with the premiere of the supernatural drama series Werewolf , which began with a two-hour pilot movie event. Three other series were added to the Saturday lineup over the next three weeks: comedies The New Adventures of Beans Baxter , Karen's Song , and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (the latter being an adaptation of the film of the same name). Both Karen's Song and Down and Out in Beverly Hills were canceled by

28800-399: The network's first successful American Idol lead-out since House , as well as the first American television program to consistently increase its episode-to-episode viewership during its first five weeks since the 1992 feat set by ABC's Roseanne . Empire ended its inaugural season as the first U.S. television show ever to increase its episodic viewership on a consistent basis throughout

29000-565: The network's longest-running drama, airing for ten seasons) after only a half-season of success on Sunday nights. The show performed well in its new Thursday slot, spending four seasons there and helping to launch Martin , another Fox comedy that became a hit when it debuted in August 1992. The Simpsons returned to Sunday nights in the fall of 1994, and has remained there ever since. The sketch comedy series In Living Color , which debuted in April 1990, created many memorable characters and launched

29200-418: The network's president and chief operating officer until his resignation in January 1993, stated would allow viewers to "sample FBC programming without missing 60 Minutes , Murder, She Wrote , or the 8 o'clock movies". Fox added one new show per week over the next several weeks, with the drama 21 Jump Street and comedies Mr. President and Duet completing its Sunday schedule. On July 11, 1987,

29400-449: The network's prime time lineup. On September 6, 1990, Fox reached an agreement with TCI (the nation's largest cable company at the time) in which TCI systems in markets that were not served by an over-the-air Fox affiliate at the time would become charter affiliates of a cable-only national feed of the network known as Foxnet . The cable-only network launched on June 6, 1991, bringing Fox programming to smaller markets that did not carry

29600-428: The network's weaker program offerings were hampering viewership of their stronger syndicated slate. At the start of the 1989–90 television season , Fox added a third night of programming, on Mondays. The season heralded the start of a turnaround for Fox. It saw the debut of a midseason replacement series, The Simpsons , an animated series that originated as a series of shorts on The Tracey Ullman Show . Ranked at

29800-531: The newly created Fox Television Group, with 20th Century Fox Television co-chairpersons Dana Walden and Gary Newman appointed to head the division. The 2014–15 season saw the series finale of Glee and debut of hits in the freshmen dramas Gotham (based on the Batman mythos) and the Lee Daniels -produced Empire . Ratings for Empire , in particular, increased week-to-week throughout its first season, becoming

30000-500: The number of Iranian Americans at 691,000, about half of which live in the US state of California. "Iranian-American" is sometimes used interchangeably with "Persian-American", partly due to the fact that, in the Western world , Iran was known as "Persia". On the Nowruz of 1935, Reza Shah Pahlavi asked foreign delegates to use the term Iran , the endonym of the country used since

30200-520: The number of Iranian students enrolled in American institutions rose to 45,340, and in 1979–80, that number reached a peak of 51,310. At that time, according to the Institute of International Education , more students from Iran were enrolled in American universities than from any other foreign country. The pattern of Iranian migration during this phase usually only involved individuals, not whole families. Due to Iran's increasing demand for educated workers in

30400-489: The official launch of FBC on April 5, 1987, under original Fox Entertainment President Garth Ancier, the network underwent a re-branding to the much shorter "Fox". According to an interview Ancier gave at that time, it was ad man Jay Chiat who suggested to network executives that, rather than create a brand from scratch, the network ought to use the "Fox" heritage of the previous 80 years and the "searchlight" iconography to link Fox Broadcasting to 20th Century Fox. Until late in

30600-406: The only actors to appear in both the first and last episodes of the series. Derricks' identical twin, Clinton Derricks-Carroll , appeared in the episodes "The King Is Back", "Greatfellas", and "The Prince of Slides", when there was a need for Rembrandt and his double to interact. Jerry O'Connell felt the first two seasons went smoothly, but then there was a significant shift in creative direction of

30800-555: The pattern and nature of Iranian emigration to the United States, while the Iran-Iraq War that ensued afterwards was also another factor that forced many of the best-educated and most wealthy families into exile in the United States and other countries. Once basically an issue of brain drain during the Pahlavi period, it was now predominantly an involuntary emigration of a relatively large number of middle- and upper-class families, including

31000-502: The period as it centered on a dysfunctional lower-middle-class family, saw viewer interest substantially increase beginning in its third season after Michigan homemaker Terry Rakolta began a boycott to force Fox to cancel the series after objecting to risqué humor and sexual content featured in a 1989 episode . Married... ' s newfound success led it to become the network's longest-running live-action sitcom, airing for 11 seasons. Fox survived where DuMont and other attempts to start

31200-407: The pilot episode was split into two approximately 45 minute segments. The series was originally mistakenly listed as "Drama" rather than "Sci-Fi" but that was corrected within a month. As of February 2023, the series was no longer available for free on Peacock TV after all episodes were moved to pay to view. On February 22, 2015, in a Sliders 20th anniversary interview, when asked about a revival of

31400-551: The potential of the concept. He cited that Fox had exerted too much control on the scripts as part of the reason for his departure. In a 2014 interview at the Toulouse Game Show, Rhys-Davies stated that the inability to get writers who had read science fiction in the first place led to the show's downfall, and their inexperience in the area led to the show often repurposing ideas from other works. He said, "We did an episode like Tremors , one like Twister , one like The Night of

31600-562: The present-day Fox Television Center. In October 1985, 20th Century Fox announced its intentions to form a fourth television network that would compete with ABC, CBS, and NBC. The plans were to use the combination of the Fox studios and the former Metromedia stations to both produce and distribute programming. Organizational plans for the network were held off until the Metromedia acquisitions cleared regulatory hurdles. Then, in December 1985, Rupert Murdoch agreed to pay $ 325 million to acquire

31800-525: The program then began to be hosted by a succession of guest hosts. After that point, some stations that affiliated with FBC in the weeks before the April 1987 launch of its prime time lineup (such as WCGV-TV in Milwaukee and WDRB -TV in Louisville ) signed affiliation agreements with the network on the condition that they would not have to carry The Late Show due to the program's weak ratings. Shortly before

32000-496: The programming schedule that began with the network's April 1987 prime time launch was replicated by The WB and UPN when those networks debuted in January 1995), making it the fifth broadcast network (behind the Dumont network) to air programming on a nightly basis. September 1993 saw the heavy promotion and debut of a short-lived western series that incorporated science-fiction elements, The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. However, it

32200-553: The remaining equity in TCF Holdings from his original partner, Marvin Davis . The purchase of the Metromedia stations was approved by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) in March 1986; the call letters of the New York City and Dallas outlets were subsequently changed respectively to WNYW and KDAF . These first six stations, then broadcasting to a combined reach of 22% of the nation's households, became known as

32400-459: The revival is still in the works. The plotlines in Sliders are all set around the idea of a multiverse , where the outcomes of non-deterministic quantum processes result in the splitting of reality into multiple universes, each existing in parallel. There has also been speculation that Sliders was inspired by George R. R. Martin 's 1992 ABC pilot Doorways , in which the main cast were fugitives fleeing through parallel worlds, while carrying

32600-477: The same per-episode salary Derricks was receiving and $ 20,000 more than Wuhrer, and the idea was scrapped. However, the episode she was to appear in, " Requiem ", was "fine tuned" to answer this question without her. Lloyd ultimately provided voiceovers for the episode, and a stand-in was used. By the end of the fourth season, Jerry and Charlie O'Connell left the series to pursue film careers. Jerry O'Connell felt that without Lloyd, Rhys-Davies, and Tormé, that much of

32800-410: The series (and by extension Fox's more hands-on involvement) caused the show to " jump the shark ", despite new executive producer Marc Scott Zicree 's decision to restore Tracy Tormé's original "alternate history" premise for the series in season 4. Tormé, along with co-creators Robert K. Weiss and John Landis, all departed the show during the third season. Part of Fox's involvement in the third season

33000-435: The series with the third season, with the Fox network desiring it to be a more action-oriented show than thought-provoking. John Rhys-Davies was the first star of the series to leave. Rhys-Davies stated in a 2016 interview that he had been critical of how the show was written, calling the concept what "could've been the best show on television", but most of the scripts he had been given were "incomprehensible gibberish" and missed

33200-421: The series, Jerry O'Connell stated, “Tracy Tormé is the guy to talk to. I am in if he is. That is the creator and boss. I go where he tells me.” Both Jerry O'Connell and John Rhys-Davies have spoken of a potential revival of the series as recently as 2019. According to Rhys-Davies, O'Connell had been in private talks with him over a possible revival, which Rhys-Davies said he would do if the series stayed focused on

33400-442: The show's original premise was gone, and opted to leave. The brothers leaving the show upset many fans and Tracy Tormé was asked what could be done to win them back. This resulted in an unsuccessful effort to bring back some popular previously recurring characters. The producers negotiated with John Novak (Ross J. Kelly, the ambulance-chasing lawyer), Alex Bruhanski (Pavel Kurlienko, the taxi driver) and Lester Barrie (Elston Diggs

33600-504: The show, requiring a new opening scene be added to frame the story as a flashback. When the show began airing in reruns on the Sci Fi Channel, Sci Fi restored the original filmed order for season one. When the DVDs were released, Universal used the aired order for all seasons. Universal Studios Home Entertainment has released all five seasons on DVD in Region 1, 2, and 4. The fifth and final season

33800-438: The side benefit of increasing local news programming on the new Fox affiliates, mirroring the programming format adopted by WSVN upon that station's switch to the network (as well as expanding the number of news-producing stations in Fox's portfolio beyond mainly charter stations in certain large and mid-sized markets). With significant market share for the first time ever and the rights to the NFL, Fox firmly established itself as

34000-488: The signal quality was marginal at best compared to the signals of VHF stations (see also: UHF television broadcasting § UHF vs VHF ) . By the time Fox launched, cable allowed UHF stations to generally be on an equal footing with VHF stations. Although Fox was growing rapidly as a network and had established itself as a presence, it was still not considered a major competitor to the established "Big Three" broadcast networks, ABC, CBS, and NBC. From its launch, Fox had

34200-597: The spin-off of certain businesses. The sale did not include the Fox Broadcasting Company and television stations or the Fox Sports, Fox News, and Fox Business cable channels, which were to be maintained under a company tentatively referred to as " New Fox ". Because Disney already owns the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), the acquisition of the Fox network by Disney would have been illegal under

34400-496: The start of the 1987–88 television season , the network's first fall launch, and were replaced by the sitcoms Second Chance and Women in Prison . In regard to its late night lineup, Fox had already decided to cancel The Late Show , and had a replacement series in development, The Wilton North Report , when the former series began a ratings resurgence under its final guest host, comedian Arsenio Hall . Wilton North lasted just

34600-483: The strength of the reality singing competition series American Idol . Regarded as the single most dominant program on 21st-century U.S. television, as well as the first Fox show to lead the Nielsen seasonal ratings, American Idol had peak audiences of up to 38 million viewers during the 2003 season finale and double-season average audiences of around 31 million viewers in 2006 and 2007 . Subsequently, it leapfrogged over Fox's Big Three competition to become

34800-476: The strengths of American Idol , 24 , House , and The O.C . In September 2006, as a result of the increasing number of over-the-air Fox affiliates and the increased availability of digital subchannels carrying Fox in certain markets, Foxnet was discontinued. Then, a sweeping milestone came by the conclusion of the 2007–08 season on May 21, 2008, shortly after the widely acclaimed seventh-season finale of American Idol , when Fox outranked longtime leader CBS as

35000-483: The third generation typically speaks only English, while maintaining a knowledge of some isolated words and phrases from their ancestral tongue. The Iranian American community follows this pattern. Camp Ayandeh, sponsored annually by the Iranian Alliances Across Borders (IAAB), has attracted children of the Iranian diaspora from multiple nations with the intention of uniting Iranian youth following

35200-465: The third season. Tormé called the third season two-parter "Exodus" "one of the worst pieces of television ever produced, and the low point of the entire series". David Peckinpah was brought onto the series in the third season (around the time when Tormé started to criticize the show). The last episode to be written by Tormé was K1803, "The Guardian", and the first to be written by Peckinpah was K1815, "Murder Most Foul". Some argue Peckinpah's involvement in

35400-441: The thought-provoking aspects of the alternate worlds. The two have spoken to NBC about this, as the rights to distribute Sliders are believed to be held by NBCUniversal . O'Connell has also said that Tormé is interested in a revival as well. On 14 July 2021, Tormé stated in an interview that a Sliders reboot is actively in the works. On January 4, 2024, series creator Tracy Tormé died of complications from diabetes. It's unknown if

35600-408: The timer is first set to count down not in the pilot episode, but in "Summer of Love"—since Fox aired "Fever" right after the pilot episode, though, many viewers were left confused as to why the Sliders suddenly had to leave within a very specific period of time. Similarly, the cliffhanger at the end of "Summer of Love" leads directly into the opening of "Prince of Wails", which Fox had actually aired

35800-429: The transition, Fox aimed to gradually reduce the amount of scripted programming development coming from 20th Television, although stalwarts such as The Simpsons would remain with the network. Iranian-American Iranian Americans , also known as Persian Americans , are citizens or nationals of the United States who are of Iranian ancestry. Most Iranian Americans arrived in the United States after 1979, as

36000-562: The two most-watched broadcast networks in the U.S. during the 2000s, have tended to equal one another in demographic ratings among general viewership, with both networks winning certain demographics by narrow margins; however, while Fox has the youngest-skewing viewer base, CBS is consistently regarded to have the oldest audience demographics among the major broadcast networks. Fox hit a milestone in February 2005 by scoring its first sweeps victory in total viewership and demographic ratings, boosted largely by its broadcast of Super Bowl XXXIX and

36200-496: The waiter at the Chandler Hotel) for their return in season five. Zoe McLellan (Logan St. Clair) was scheduled to appear again and Jason Gaffney (Conrad Bennish, Jr) from season one was confirmed for four episodes including the season finale. However, none of these guest stars appeared. Quinn, eager to demonstrate his vortex technology to Prof. Arturo and Wade, inadvertently opens a large wormhole that draws Rembrandt with them to

36400-514: The years before the revolution, the majority of the Iranian students in America intended to return home after graduation to work, especially those who had received financial aid from the Iranian government or from industry on condition of returning to take jobs upon graduation. Due to the drastic events of the 1979 Revolution , the students ended up staying in the United States as refugees. These several thousand visitors and students unintentionally became

36600-487: Was $ 2.56 billion. Almost one in three Iranian-American households have annual incomes of more than $ 100,000 (compared to one in five for the overall U.S. population). Ali Mostasahri, a founding member of the Iranian Studies Group, offers a reason for the relative success of Iranian-Americans compared to other immigrants. He believes that, unlike many other immigrants who left their home countries because of economic hardships, Iranians left due to social or religious reasons like

36800-425: Was a late-night talk show , The Late Show , which was hosted by comedian Joan Rivers . After a strong start, The Late Show quickly eroded in the ratings; it was never able to overtake NBC stalwart The Tonight Show . By early 1987, Rivers (and her then-husband Edgar Rosenberg , the show's original executive producer) quit The Late Show after disagreements with the network over the show's creative direction,

37000-541: Was acknowledged to have been the one who created the network, with the New York Times noting in October 1986 that Diller's "current obsession is creating a television network to compete each evening with NBC, CBS and ABC." The Fox Broadcasting Company, or "FBC" as it was known back then, officially debuted with a soft launch at 11:00 p.m. Eastern and Pacific Time on Thursday, October 9, 1986. Its inaugural program

37200-471: Was boosted by the transfer of the Miss Universe and Miss USA pageants from NBC, as well as shows such as Grease: Live , Empire and the return of The X-Files after its most recent season ending in 2002. Grease: Live became the first live American television musical special of the 21st century to be broadcast in front of a live studio audience (as well as the first ever live musical special aired by

37400-485: Was broadcast on CBS, marking the start of Fox's rivalry with the "Big Three" networks while popularizing the counterprogramming strategy against the Super Bowl telecast. The early and mid-1990s saw the debuts of several soap opera-style prime time dramas aimed at younger audiences that became quick hits, which, in addition to Beverly Hills, 90210 , included its adult-focused spin-off Melrose Place (which initially had

37600-480: Was filmed as the premiere for season three. In this episode, the audience learns why the Sliders will now be able to slide anywhere between San Francisco and L.A. Fox opted to air "Rules of the Game" first, since it was a more action-oriented episode. "The Last of Eden" was filmed before John Rhys-Davies left the show. Fox chose to air the episode for the first time on March 28, a full month after Arturo had been written off

37800-441: Was fired because she was jealous of Kari Wuhrer. Universal and Lloyd's agent both refused to comment and the rumour spread. Much later it was revealed that Lloyd and Wuhrer did not get along, primarily due to some snide comments Wuhrer had made about Lloyd's engagement to a crew member. As Peckinpah wanted to return to the 3 male/1 female dynamic of the first two seasons, it was decided Lloyd was no longer required after she asked for

38000-399: Was intended to return them to their home universe, their premature use of the timer to escape a dangerous situation has caused the timer to lose track of the coordinates for their home universe. Now, they are forced to slide between universes, spending anywhere from minutes to months there, waiting for the timer to count down to the next time they can open a vortex to a new universe, hoping it

38200-568: Was large and influential enough to host US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for a private visit in April 2019. And San Antonio and Austin each are said to have 3000-5000 Iranian American residents each, who are mostly attracted to large academic centers of excellence such as South Texas Medical Center and UT Austin or the climate of the Texas Hill Country area that is not un-similar to the southern Iran Zagros Mountains region. The largest concentration of Mandaeans from Khuzestan outside

38400-651: Was merged with 20th Century Pictures in 1935. Fox is a member of the North American Broadcasters Association and the National Association of Broadcasters . 20th Century Fox (now 20th Century Studios ) had been involved in television production as early as the 1950s, producing several syndicated programs . Following the demise of the DuMont Television Network in August 1956, after it became mired in severe financial problems,

38600-422: Was moving the vehicle, the dune buggy overturned and crushed him, killing him instantly. According to Steadman's parents, his death was preventable. Entering into the fifth season, the production team knew the series was not being renewed and had saved money from the budget of each season five episode for use in a climactic battle for the season finale. The money was instead used for the penultimate episode, "Eye of

38800-629: Was named Fox's new president of alternative entertainment and specials Rob Wade; he had previously worked as a showrunner for Dancing with the Stars , as head of entertainment for BBC Worldwide , and as executive producer of America's Got Talent and The X Factor . On July 27, 2018, in a deal first announced December 2017, and completed March 20, 2019, 21st Century Fox shareholders agreed to sell most of its key assets (including 20th Century Fox , 20th Century Fox Television , and FX Networks ) to The Walt Disney Company for $ 71.3 billion, following

39000-448: Was part of the original transaction but was spun off to the Hearst Broadcasting subsidiary of the Hearst Communications in a separate, concurrent deal as part of a right of first refusal related to that station's 1982 sale to Metromedia. (Two years later, News Corporation acquired WXNE-TV in that market from the Christian Broadcasting Network and changed its call letters to WFXT .) Radio personality Clarke Ingram suggested that

39200-424: Was released in Region 1 on January 17, 2012, almost 4 years after season 4. On December 2, 2014, Universal released Sliders- The Complete Series on DVD in Region 1. This set contains all 88 episodes of the series on 22 single sided discs with a run time of 66 hours (3954 minutes). On July 1, 2016, it was announced that Mill Creek Entertainment had acquired the rights to the series in Region 1 and would re-release

39400-410: Was subsequently picked up by Lifetime (before being cancelled for good in 2013); Cops , in turn, would move its first-run episodes to Spike in 2013 after 23 seasons (ending its original run on Fox as the network's longest-running prime time program) and had been cancelled in 2020, leaving sports and repeats of reality and drama series as the only programs airing on Fox on Saturday evenings. During

39600-596: Was the most-watched American television network in total viewership during the 2007–08 season . Fox and its affiliated companies operate many entertainment channels in international markets, but these do not necessarily air the same programming as the U.S. network. Most viewers in Canada have access to at least one U.S.-based Fox affiliate, either over the air or through a pay television provider, although Fox's National Football League broadcasts and most of its prime time programming are subject to simultaneous substitution regulations for pay television providers imposed by

39800-483: Was the supernatural investigative drama that debuted immediately following it on Friday nights, The X-Files , that would find long-lasting success, and would become Fox's first series to crack Nielsen's year-end Top 20 most-watched network programs. After several other failed attempts at late night programming following the cancellation of The Late Show (most notably, the quick failure of The Chevy Chase Show in 1993), Fox finally found success in that time period with

40000-400: Was to shift production from Vancouver to Los Angeles to reduce filming costs. The recurring characters were dropped due to the expense of flying them from Vancouver to Los Angeles for filming. Bartender Elston Diggs was brought in as a recurring character for six episodes, but Peckinpah eventually rejected the concept. Logan St. Clair was created to be a recurring character, which is evident in

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