Twentieth Century Fox Television

Like him or loathe him, Rupert Murdoch is the last of the great media swashbucklers, a throwback to the pirates, cutthroats and visionaries who used to run the business before it was engulfed and devoured by giant risk-averse corporate behemoths. The earthquake that rocked News Corp. this week was a typical Murdoch seismic event. As one of his top executives once told me: "Rupert is a gambler. He tolerates noble failure more than complacency."

Television's reigning champion, "American Idol," returns this week and the talent contest is expected to be more popular -- and profitable -- than ever. The Fox show begins its seventh season Tuesday against the walking wounded. As the strike by the Writers Guild of America grinds into its 11th week, rival networks are scrambling to stay alive.

In one of the quickest turnarounds ever for a television show to appear on DVD, Twentieth Century Fox Television today is expected to release the season premiere episodes of "24" less than 12 hours after the popular drama finishes airing. The sixth season of the show starring Kiefer Sutherland as federal agent and terrorist fighter Jack Bauer was launched Sunday and Monday on Fox Broadcasting Network. By this morning, DVDs of the shows will be on retail shelves.

Carol Burnett filed a $2-million copyright infringement lawsuit against 20th Century Fox, claiming her cleaning woman character was portrayed on the animated series "Family Guy." The U.S. District Court suit filed in L.A. this week said the Fox Broadcasting show didn't have her permission to include her cleaning woman character Charwoman in an April 2006 episode. The episode shows Charwoman as a porno shop maid and it uses what the lawsuit called an "altered version" of Burnett's theme music.

Poised to beat out the competition in the prized 18- to 49-year-old demographic for the second year in a row, Fox is retaining much of its schedule next season, adding just six new programs in the fall. "We're really able to build a schedule that shows strength and incredible stability across the board, across every night of the week," Peter Liguori, president of entertainment for the Fox Broadcasting Co., told reporters in a morning conference call Thursday.

Several Fox affiliates have chosen not to broadcast "If I Did It," the two-part special in which O.J. Simpson talks in hypothetical terms about how he would have committed the 1994 slayings of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman. The stations are in Fresno; Green Bay, Wis.; Mobile, Ala.; Toledo, Ohio; Albuquerque, N.M.; Providence, R.I.; Omaha and Lincoln, Neb.; and Dakota Dunes, S.D.

It's been years since his criminal and civil trials, yet O.J. Simpson continues to reveal who we are. That can apply to television networks as well as people. On the strength of such hit shows as "American Idol," "24" and "House," Fox Television in recent years seemed to be gradually washing away its original image as a network unafraid to wade in the primordial ooze of the lowest common denominator.

The Fox network thriller "24" inspires cult-like devotion by delivering mayhem, suspense and duplicity in every 60-minute episode. Now, 20th Century Fox Television is trying to squeeze that pulse-pounding formula into a 60-second package -- for cellphones. "24: Conspiracy," an original drama produced solely for the very small screen, will have its U.S. premiere today as part of a mobile video service from Verizon Wireless.

The much-discussed -- or much-hyped -- recent episode of "The Simpsons," in which the town of Springfield became a cash-hungry mecca for gay weddings, was certainly in keeping with the show's love of throwing candy-colored Nerf balls in the culture wars. But the episode also gave us a taste of the show's favorite radical trick: its constant play-fighting against its own network.