The network did not have a significant market share until the early 1990s when News Corp. bought more TV station groups, e.g. New World Communications, Chris-Craft Industries, BHC Communications and United Television, making it the largest owner of television stations in the United States. Fox became a major competitor to the "big three" broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) in 1994 after it outbid longtime rights owner CBS to broadcast National Conference games of the National Football League. The rights gave Fox many new viewers (and affiliates) and a platform for advertising its other shows. Fox later acquired rights to broadcast games of the National Hockey League (in 1995), Major League Baseball (in 1996), and NASCAR auto races (in 2000).
The Fox network is home to the longest-running sitcom and animated series in American television history, The Simpsons. It is also credited with launching the careers of such Hollywood stars as Jim Carrey, Ben Stiller and Ashton Kutcher.
It was estimated in 2003 that FOX is viewable by 96.18% of all US households, reaching 102,565,710 houses in the United States. FOX has 180 VHF and UHF owned-and-operated or affiliate stations in the U.S. and U.S. possessions.
On April 2, 1998, two award-winning Florida TV producers, Jane Akre and Steve Wilson, held press conferences in Tampa and Tallahassee to announce a lawsuit against a FoxTV network television station, WTVT.
Akre and Wilson were fired after a year-long battle over a TV news feature series they produced which highlighted the public health dangers of Monsanto's rBGH (increased antibiotic residues, increased levels of a potent human growth hormone factor called IGF-1, linked to the promotion of cancer tumors).
Shortly before the original TV series was to run, an attorney from Monsanto contacted FoxTV and demanded that the script be altered.
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