Disney’s recently acquired 20th Century Fox TV studio is the latest to have the “Fox” name dropped, with the company announcing today that it’ll be rebranding the studio to just 20th Television, as part of a larger rebrand for all of Disney’s TV studios.
Additionally, Fox 21 Television Studios is getting renamed to Touchstone Television (a TV brand that Disney stopped using in 2007), as the company works to remove the last traces of the Fox name from its assets. Disney is also using the rebranding to merge ABC Studios and its subsidiary ABC Signature under the ABC Signature banner.
New logos and end cards will appear on TV shows this fall, including on episodes of The Simpsons, Family Guy, American Dad, and Bob’s Burgers. Existing episodes on streaming and digital libraries will continue to bear the original logos.
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The news comes after Disney enacted a similar name change for 20th Century Fox and Fox Searchlight Pictures film studios earlier this year, although those slightly more sensible renames simply dropped the “Fox” to become 20th Century Studios and Searchlight Pictures. Why Disney decided to go with 20th Television instead of the more aesthetically matching “20th Century Television,” we may never know. (In fairness, both names are rather outdated given that it’s the 21st century and has been so for some time, but I digress.)
Cutting “Fox” out of its acquired brands was a requirement of the deal that saw Disney gain control of 21st Century Fox’s assets last year, according to Variety. The goal is to avoid confusion between the Disney-owned parts of the former company and the “New Fox,” which includes Fox Sports, Fox Business, and the contentious Fox News, as well as ownership of the broadcast Fox TV channel.