9-1-1 is moving to ABC, but its spin-off is staying on Fox

Fox is giving up one of its biggest hits, but there's actually a good reason for it

By Sam Barsanti | May 1, 2023 | 8:22pm

Aux News ABC

9-1-1 is moving to ABC, but its spin-off is staying on Fox

Introducing Endless Mode: A New Games & Anime Site from Paste

Read our announcement | See the 10 Best Games of 2025 (So Far)

9-1-1 Photo: Fox

Wrap your mind around this one: Fox decided not to renew 9-1-1 for another season, so now ABC has swooped in and snatched it up. The Ryan Murphy-created show has been one of Fox’s biggest primetime hits, but now it’s going to air its next season—its seventh—on ABC instead. But wait, it gets weirder: Spin-off 9-1-1: Lone Star has been renewed by Fox and will continue to air on Fox for at least another season. That means, much like the Yellowstone franchise, you’re going to have to look in more than one place in order to see everything the 9-1-1verse has to offer.

But perhaps weirdest of all is that there’s actually a very sensible reason for all of this, as laid out by Vulture: 9-1-1 is produced by 20th Century Television, which is now owned by Disney instead of Fox. Ergo, Fox doesn’t have an ownership stake in the show, so even though it gets big ratings, it’s expensive to keep on the air because Fox has to license it from Mickey Mouse. Meanwhile, Disney owns ABC, so it now gets to license the show to itself, and it also owns Hulu, so it gets to license the show to itself again. Disney didn’t take over all of culture on accident, folks.

Most Popular

As for Lone Star, Vulture’s theory is that Fox is going to use it to buoy its new slate of in-house originals, like the similarly first responder-themed Rescue: Hi-Surf. It must be the cheaper of the two shows (it doesn’t star Angela Bassett for one thing), because otherwise it would be weird for Fox to retain the spin-off and not the flagship show. Then again, it seems to be the buzzier of the two shows, with that terrifying body-horror clip going viral a few weeks ago, so maybe Fox is being cannier here than we were giving it credit for.

Either way, everybody seems to be getting what they want out of this, except for the frozen guy who got his chest popped open by Rob Lowe in Lone Star. That guy’s dead as hell.