As many of you have already heard,
FOX ROX, will make its last appearance on Thursday, March 29th (12M-1230A with an encore Saturday March 31st 1230-1A) and will feature the band,
Unwritten Law.
The March 29th episode will be the 233rd episode, and to put that in perspective, this is an amazing number of episodes, with only a very few national programs (such as Simpsons) ever producing more original programs. Fox Rox was the only local music show in California, and one of the very few local music shows existing anywhere in the U.S.
Fox Rox premiered on May 2, 2002 and has been hosted by Troy Johnson, writer and editor at San Diego CityBeat Magazine. Fox Rox featured music news and live performances from local (and National) bands. In the past five years the program won 2 local Emmy Awards and was one of the first media outlets to showcase bands such as Maroon 5, Switchfoot, and Ozomatli, which have since skyrocketed to sell millions of albums and win several Grammy Awards.
It is important to state that we at FOX6 love Fox Rox. As the General Manager of FOX6 I have always believed in this program and have been proud of our ability to air it each week. However, the sad truth this, Fox Rox fell victim to the economic business realities of television.
Earlier this year, we lost our Fox Rox sponsors, and with that loss we could no longer afford to keep Fox Rox in production. In addition, we also made the decision to produce future local programming through free-lance production units in order to mitigate our expenses.
However, as I said previously, FOX ROX did have a very long and very strong "run"...much more than most of the shows that have ever made it broadcast on network or cable. At FOX6 we hope that at some date in the future we can bring this program back..perhaps in an entirely different format which would make the program more accessible to our viewers, but at the same time would keep our costs lower, which would enable this local music program to be reborn.