'New Fox' To Brand As Fox Entertainment

Fox Broadcasting, the television arm of the larger Fox Corporation, has formally announced a new name, Fox Entertainment, as it moves forward as an independent company following the Disney-Fox merger.

Previously, The Fox Broadcasting Company – owner of the Fox Television Network, Fox News and various other cable television outlets – had been referring to its future incarnation by the placeholder title “New Fox.” Charlie Collier, CEO of the newly minted Fox Entertainment, made the announcement on Wednesday.

“We’ve renamed simply Fox Entertainment,” Collier said. “Fox Entertainment is an open canvas upon which we’ll create new ways to do business. It’s a startup company, albeit with roughly 26 billion dollars in valuation.”

According to cbr.com, Collier also announced that Fox Entertainment has launched Sidecar, a “content development accelerator,” run by former Fox president Gail Berman. The accelerator will develop scripted and unscripted programming to go hand-in-hand with other programming from its parent company.

Fox Entertainment, which will continue to work with the NFL and WWE, also mentioned a renewed commitment to animation going forward, announcing several new animated series as well as renewing stalwarts The Simpsons and Bob's Burgers.

The general emotion at Fox is tense over the pending "D-Day," when Disney officially buys out the studio and its related assets. 4,000 jobs are expected to be rendered moot by the merger, although some in Hollywood believe that number could increase to 10,000 over time, according to cbr.com.

Analysts are predicting that many well-connected executives will soon be vying for the same positions, and that layoffs could hit the overlapping marketing, distribution and home entertainment divisions of Fox particularly hard.

"There will be bloodshed over time," said industry analyst Rich Greenfield. "This is virgin territory for Disney, which has never done a mass integration."