Don’t worry, Family Guy is safe, despite being pushed to a midseason premiere

Family Guy, Bob’s Burgers, and The Simpsons are all in the final year of their multi-season contracts. Family Guy has also been moved to midseason, the first time in nearly 20 years the show hasn’t premiered on Fox’s fall schedule. These facts might cause a Family Guy lover (like Shakira) to worry or a Family Guy hater (like Patrick Warburton’s mom) to celebrate. But the truth is, Seth MacFarlane’s animated series is still of “crucial importance” to the network and will get a full season order, according to Fox Television Network President Michael Thorn (via Deadline).

The midseason bump was to give Fox’s newer animated shows like Krapopolis and Universal Basic Guys (which just got a second-season renewal ahead of its series premiere) the benefit of airing after the NFL on Sundays. But Fox CEO Rob Wade said the network is “very, very happy” with its new series and its old classics. Of Family Guy, Bob’s, and Simpsons, he said “we love those shows, we have a great relationship with the creatives from those shows and we have a great relationship with Hulu and Disney.”

In fact, Thorn said most of Family Guy’s audience watches on Hulu or on demand after the episodes air (per The Hollywood Reporter). With its success on streaming, MacFarlane announced at PaleyFest last month that the show would have two holiday specials (for Halloween and Christmas) air exclusively on Hulu later this year. Lest these indicators suggest Family Guy could become a streaming-only series in the near future, Wade said, “We’re seeing more and more how important the broadcast network is and how important that windowing is and you need a broadcast window for shows to cut through… I think these shows really benefit from being on Fox and I think Disney recognizes that.”

So that’s Family Guy from the business standpoint. From the creative side, MacFarlane teased at PaleyFest that he’s had an idea for a Family Guy movie “for the past 15 years.” As far as the series goes, the creator and voice actor told The Los Angeles Times he may well go on forever. “At this point, I don’t see a good reason to stop. People still love it,” he said. “It makes people happy and it funds some good causes. It’s a lot of extraneous cash that you can donate to Rainforest Trust and you can still go out to dinner that night. There was a time when I thought, it’s time to wrap it up. At this point, we’ve reached escape velocity. I don’t know that there’s any reason to stop at this point unless people get sick of it. Unless the numbers show that people just are, ‘Eh, we don’t care about Family Guy anymore.’ But that hasn’t happened yet.”