Bye Bye Twentieth Century Fox

[Frank Angel]

New York (CNN Business) 20th Century Fox, one of the most-recognized names in entertainment history, is officially no more.

Disney (DIS) announced on Monday it would be rebranding one of its TV studios, 20th Century Fox Television, as 20th Television. The new name cuts both the "Century" and the "Fox" from the studio's name.
The move follows Disney dropping the Fox name from its 20th Century Fox film brand in January. The company, which closed a $71 billion deal to acquire many of Fox's assets last year, renamed the longtime studio as just 20th Century Studios.

The well known logo and title card, which has the words 20th Television stacked above spotlights, will stay the same minus the excluded words. The new logo and graphics will appear on new episodes of 20th Television TV series starting this fall. Older titles, which have already aired before the rebrand,will maintain the former logo and name. Disney cutting Fox from all of its studios makes sense since it could be confusing for consumers. The remaining assets from Fox such as the Fox Entertainment, Fox Sports and Fox News are a part of Fox Corporation, which has nothing to do with Disney.

Disney drops 'Fox' name and will rebrand its movie studio as '20th Century.' Disney will also rebrand its other TV studios with new names and graphics. That includes changing ABC Studios and ABC Signature Studios to ABC Signature and Fox 21 Television Studios will become Touchstone Television. "Our new studio names and logos mark a new day for ABC Signature, 20th Television and Touchstone Television while honoring their rich histories and the creative power of The Walt Disney Company," Craig Hunegs, Disney television studios president, said in a statement. "20th Century Fox was created in 1935 as a merger between Twentieth Century Pictures and Fox Films. The film studio has produced some of the most popular and beloved films in Hollywood history. That includes "Star Wars," "The Sound of Music," "Die Hard" and "Home Alone." Even its logo and recognizable music has become synonymous with going to the movies." And its television studio is no slouch. The studio has produced hit shows like "The Simpsons" and "Modern Family."

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/08/11/m...ion/index.html

20th Television....oy vey

I guess "the creative power of Disney" was smoking crack on this one.

[Marcel Birgelen]

Yeah, very creative... but besides the fact that Disney is generally associated with "family values", does any normal patron or your average binge watcher actually care about the name of the studio? I've seldomly heard anybody say... hey, that new Warner Brothers picture is out, I've GOT to see that... Otherwise, I've had plenty of questions if I'd seen the latest Pixar movie over the years, although even the Pixar name seems to be waning away...

[Steve Guttag]

I dunno...ask any Star Wars fan...the 20th Century Fox logo and music at the head of the original trilogy are pretty much intertwined with the beginning of the movie. The music, with the CinemaScope extension sort of set up ideally for the silence that followed for the reading of "A long time ago..." There are many films where the studio's logo is mated up to the beginning of the movie. The studio also does tend to denote a bit of a style or values in their movies too. Perhaps less so now as studio heads shuffle so much and seem to have less of a legacy feel...except maybe Disney...who guards their brand, and for good reason.

I wonder if 20th Television was conceived as a transitional name to bridge the gap from where they are coming from and where they are going to. I can definitely understand dropping the "Fox" portion of the name so long as their is another "Fox" company out there in similar areas to Disney.

The 20th Century Fox logo is pretty iconic, perhaps more so than other logos for movies...complete with its own music and while it has been tweaked over the years...it has held up pretty much unscathed as compared to other big studio logos over the years/decades (most other studio logos have had complete makeovers of their logo over the years...and have often come back to a more classic form).

[Leo Enticknap]

I can definitely understand dropping the "Fox" portion of the name so long as their is another "Fox" company out there in similar areas to Disney.

And dare I say it, one with a diametrically opposed political position to that of the rodent.

[Steve Guttag]

"dare, dare."

[Marcel Birgelen]

I never really understood Rupert Murdoch's decision to put a politically biassed cable news platform under the Fox brand name. Sure, it's a household name, but hard-coupling that same name to political bias never made business sense to me, given the fact of all those other multi-billion-dollar properties tied to the Fox name.

I dunno...ask any Star Wars fan...the 20th Century Fox logo and music at the head of the original trilogy are pretty much intertwined with the beginning of the movie. The music, with the CinemaScope extension sort of set up ideally for the silence that followed for the reading of "A long time ago..."

Yes, sure. Hard core Star Wars fans probably also want the "original" version of the logo, not the extended, CGI version. But like you said, we're talking about some real fans here. I guess that when I ask the average moviegoer which studio released the original Star Wars trilogy, most couldn't even come up with 20th Century Fox.

The 20th Century Fox logo is pretty iconic, perhaps more so than other logos for movies...complete with its own music and while it has been tweaked over the years...it has held up pretty much unscathed as compared to other big studio logos over the years/decades (most other studio logos have had complete makeovers of their logo over the years...and have often come back to a more classic form).

Until now it remains one of my favorites, especially the extended scope version. It really builds up some anticipation, so whatever replaces it in the future, it has some catching up to do.

But still, while hardcore moviegoers may derive some value of what studio made which movie, to most people, those names are just "there". Exceptions are primarily everything controlled by The Walt Disney Corporation, like "Disney" logo itself, Pixar, Marvel, LucasFilm... I guess because they're all much more tied to specific genres and franchises, that's why their brand has become associated with those movies. Apparently, Disney has, more like any other studio, understood the value of their own brand and while Disney has released movies in all kinds of genres over the decades, stuff that didn't fit under e.g. the Disney brand itself, has often been released under other brands, like Touchstone, Buena Vista, Dimension Films and Miramax to name some. While other studios do often have their own sub-labels e.g. for some "boutique" releases, the brand-to-content-type relation in general, remains less strong with those.

[Leo Enticknap]

I never really understood Rupert Murdoch's decision to put a politically biassed cable news platform under the Fox brand name.

Carrying on a tradition? In the late '20s and early '30s, the Fox Movietone News newsreel was infamously pro-Hoover and anti-FDR. In an arguable case of history repeating itself, when Fox and 20th Century merged in 1935, the word Fox was dropped from the newsreel's title.

[Martin Brooks]

For what Disney paid for Fox, their deal with Murdoch should have enabled them to keep the Fox name and Murdoch should have given it up for the properties he was keeping. In retrospect, I don't know why Disney bothered at all. They seem to have killed the production of most Fox films and fired a great deal of their staff. "20th Television" does sound pretty lame. Why not "21st Century Disney"? or "20th Century Disney"? "20th Television" sounds like it was created by an idiot who doesn't understand English grammar.

[Leo Enticknap]

Projecting for some festival or other, I once played a student movie that opened with a parody of the TCF logo, announcing that it was a production of 21st Century Skunk - complete with an animated stripey atop the statue base with the searchlights, lifting its tail and squirting its smelly stuff. At the time I suspect that they'd likely receive a cease and desist letter if this movie ever received wider exposure than a niche interest festival. But if Disney are now disassociating themselves with the TCF brand, I guess these guys are now free to have at it.

[Mike Blakesley]

For what Disney paid for Fox, their deal with Murdoch should have enabled them to keep the Fox name and Murdoch should have given it up for the properties he was keeping. In retrospect, I don't know why Disney bothered at all.

Disney bought the library and the intellectual properties. I would assume they gave less than two shits about the Fox name or the logo.

As for the 20th Television thing -- there used to be a TV version of the logo which would play AFTER the end-credits of a show - much shorter and with different music. It would be the typical 20th Century Fox logo, but then the word TELEVISION would zoom in and cover the word "CENTURY." So it would say "20th TELEVISION FOX" which made no sense to me at all. Maybe that was the inspiration for 20th Television. Dopey as it is.

[Marcel Birgelen]

It's not like "20th Century Fox" really makes all that much sense for most viewers. I mean, what does a Fox from the 20th Century have to do with movies or television? (Yeah, I do know the history behind the name. ).

But it's a name that has seen so much exposure over the years, it does have some market value. Also, apparently marketing research has shown that "strange names" seem to stick easier than their "less strange" counterparts. Häagen-Dazs is a perfect example of this. It's a company founded in the U.S., but many people tend to think it's something more exotic, like something Scandinavian.

In the end, I do think it's a bit of a strange move for Disney to spend $71B on a takeover and then simply ditch the name. Besides some distinct "cherry-picking" I doubt they're going to integrate the IP into the Disney brand, as they spend decades to build that brand and the image that accompanies it. Rebranding stuff also costs a lot of money and more than once has caused for a lot of confusion for consumers.

[Steve Guttag]

To buy a company and ditch its name is very common (not just with this industry). Panasonic bought Sanyo, for instance...the Sanyo brand is gone. Panasonic just wanted its assets/technology (batteries, primarily, as I recall), not its badge (beyond having one less competitor in some markets). Disney just wanted TCF's catalog and, no doubt, to complete its Boardwalk/Park Place Monopoly on the Star Wars collection, having bought Lucasfilm already. I believe Episode 4 was owned by TCF, not Lucas (as far as the feature itself).

[Leo Enticknap]

Common in the airline industry, too - Continental swallowed by United, then Northwest by Delta. Neither name now survives, except on nostalgia geeks' websites. Less so in Europe, interestingly: Air France and KLM, and British Airways and Iberia, all survived as individual brands, despite both being owned by the same entities.

[Marcel Birgelen]

For the airline brands it's because local governments often still have a lot of say in what happens with those airlines. Just recently for example, KLM/Air France was bailed out by big government handouts from the Dutch and French governments. One of the requirements for the Dutch part of the deal was continued relative independence of the KLM part for example. You can argue that this is (illegal) government interventionism, but governments also have an interest in keeping airports like Schiphol, Heathrow and Charles de Gaulle an important hub. If your national airline gets swallowed up by one of those mega-conglomerates, chances are they're going to pull out of such an airport as a central hub. Such a move has a big impact on employment in the region.

It's certainly nothing new to consolidate brands, in the end it's cheaper to market a single brand than just separate brands. On the other hand, consolidation isn't always the right choice if those brands do have specific products that appeal to a certain niche. And in the case of Disney, you see a lot of vertical brands, which all play to their own audience. Someone may be a Marvel fan, but not a Star Wars fan. Both brands are owned by Disney, but marketed to different audiences. In this case, Disney was never going to consolidate the Fox properties under the Disney brand, therefore it would've made some sense to keep a household name. Especially, looking at the price they paid for it... I guess Murdoch will be laughing all the way to the bank for the rest of his life and his children will too... Meanwhile, I have the distinct feeling Disney will get a case of buyers remorse rather sooner than later...

[Jarod Reddig]

Sad to see it go.
Very iconic.