Seth MacFarlane continues to express his displeasure at the fact that his long-running animated series, Family Guy, airs on Fox, whose parent company, Fox Entertainment, is a sister company to Fox News. This is an issue for MacFarlane as he feels that his series has a branding connection to the home of Tucker Carlson, whose news commentary series, Tucker Carlson Tonight, airs every weeknight on Fox News and frequently draws criticism from MacFarlane over Carlson's political positions.
In his most recent public complaint on Sunday, MacFarlane tweeted, “Tucker Carlson’s latest opinion piece once again makes me wish Family Guy was on any other network. Look, Fox, we both know this marriage isn’t working any more. The sex is only once a year, I don’t get along with your mother, and well… I’ve been having an affair with NBC.”
MacFarlane, of course, is referencing the $200 million deal that he signed in January 2020 with NBCUniversal’s UCP, formerly severing his longstanding ties with 20th Century Fox Television (which is now Fox Entertainment after its then parent company, 20th Century Fox, was purchased by Disney, with Fox Entertainment spun off because companies are not allowed to own multiple broadcast networks and Disney already owned ABC. Fox News was also split off in the deal for the same reasons).
Of the three current shows that MacFarlane created that launched on Fox, Family Guy is the only one still on the network, as American Dad moved to TBS years ago and MacFarlane's science fiction series, Orville, will be moving to Hulu with its upcoming third season.
This is not the first time that MacFarlane expressed his ire at being connected to Carlson. In 2018, he tweeted his agreement with a CNN reporter criticizing Carlson's show by adding, “In other words, don’t think critically, don’t consult multiple news sources, and in general, don’t use your brain. Just blindly obey Fox News. This is fringe sh-t, and it’s business like this that makes me embarrassed to work for this company.”
In April of last year, he also responded to commentary by Fox News' Laura Ingraham by tweeting, “I really cannot fathom that we produce content for the same corporation.”
Source: Deadline