Fox Broadcasting

"The result was *The Tracey Ullman Show,* a sketch and music variety series that turned out to be far too highbrow for Fox. But inside it were these little animated one- or two-minute interstitials about a family called the Simpsons. Short though they were, Brooks and his co-creator, Matt Groening, thought they could make a half-hour series. It was expensive—a huge gamble. But more than any other show, it built Fox. *The Simpsons* is probably the longest-running, most successful show in the history of television. Ironically, we scheduled it directly opposite that number one series, *The Cosby Show,* and we beat it that first night out. That cemented Fox Broadcasting firmly as the fourth network."

"Over the years my risk appetite has grown a lot, but I’ll never be in his league. He’s a gambler at heart, always calculating just how far he can push to get the opportunities he hungers for. Sometimes he overreaches, and usually overpays, but he’s always been saved by his ability to pull out of his hat whatever profits are needed to pay off the debts. Over and over, he’s been the great media disrupter. He changed British television by launching Sky satellite service, committing billions of dollars he didn’t actually have for a market that didn’t exist. I’ll be forever grateful that he backed me with Fox Broadcasting against such huge odds."