Fox Registry, LLC (ʺApplicantʺ) is a wholly owned subsidiary of News Corporation and is part of the News Corporation group of companies. News Corporation is a publicly traded, diversified, global media company. Affiliates (as defined in the draft Registry Agreement contained in the Applicant Guidebook dated 2012-01-11) of Applicant within the News Corporation group provide a wide range of services under the world-famous FOX brand, including filmed entertainment, television entertainment, home entertainment, music publishing, international entertainment, digital entertainment, consumer products and other related products and services (collectively, the “FOX Businesses”).
The intended mission and purpose of the .FOX TLD is to serve as a trusted, specialized, hierarchical and intuitive namespace for the iconic and world-famous FOX brand and associated goods and services.
1. The FOX Businesses
The FOX Businesses have a major impact on billions of consumers across the globe and include the following:
I. Feature Film Entertainment: The Twentieth Century Fox, Fox 2000, Fox Searchlight Pictures and Blue Sky Studios film banners produce, distribute, and license some of the most commercially successful and iconic films in history, including the two highest grossing films of all time—Avatar and Titanic, which together grossed over $4.6 billion in worldwide box office receipts—as well as thousands of classics such as All About Eve, The Seven Year Itch, Miracle on 34th Street, and franchises such as Alien, X-Men and Die Hard.
II. Television Entertainment: The FOX Businesses offer a wide array of television-related services, such as:
- Television Production: Twentieth Century Fox Television, Twentieth Television, Fox 21 and Fox Television Studios have produced a vast library of world-famous and award-winning series, including M*A*S*H, X-Files, The Wonder Years, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Glee, 24, The Simpsons and Modern Family.
- Broadcast Television: The FOX Broadcasting Network reaches circa 99% of all U.S. TV households via 200 affiliated stations. Its prime-time programming features some of the most-watched series on television, such as House, X-Factor, American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance.
- Television Stations: FOX Television Stations owns and operates 27 full-power U.S. broadcast TV stations, including stations in nine of the top ten largest U.S. markets.
- Sports: FOX Sports offers a wide array of sports-related television programming worldwide. It is the exclusive home of the Daytona 500, the World Series and coverage of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. FOX Sports operates 19 regional sports networks as well as cable channels such as Fox Soccer Channel, Speed Channel, Fuel TV and FOX Deportes. FOX Sports also licenses several direct-to-consumer experiences, such as FOX Sports restaurants.
- Cable Network Programming: Fox Cable Networks is one of the largest and most diverse cable TV programming groups with 43 programming services reaching more than 550,000,000 subscribing television homes. Fox Cable Networks’ channels include FOX News Channel, which has been the most-watched cable news network in the United States for over 10 years, with an average of 1.865 million primetime viewers in 2011. Fox Cable Networks’ other well-known channels include FX, National Geographic Channel, Fox Movie Channel and Fox Business Channel.
III. Home Entertainment & Music Publishing: Twentieth Century Fox Home Entertainment and Fox Music distribute film and television content via a wide variety of media formats, such as DVDs, Blu-Ray Disc, Digital Download, CDs and others. Fox Music has been responsible for the worldwide sales of over 60 million albums, producing 3 Platinum, 6 Multi-Platinum and 6 Gold records. Fox Music alone has won 4 Academy Awards, 4 Golden Globe Awards, 11 Emmy Awards, and 12 Grammy Awards.
IV. International Entertainment: FOX International Channels develops, produces and distributes over 350 pay-TV channels in 35 languages across Latin America, Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa, reaching over 1.1 billion viewing subscribers worldwide. FOX International Channels also owns and operates the .FOX Networks, a global online ad sales house.
V. Digital: The FOX Businesses’ digital properties include the FoxShop.com, Fox.com, FoxSports.com, FoxNews.com and FoxMovies.com websites. These and other websites are visited by hundreds of millions of consumers from countries all around the world. In addition, Fox Digital Entertainment develops original mobile applications and made-for-web original video content that is consumed by a large audience of Internet and mobile device users.
VI. Consumer Products: Fox Consumer Products sells millions of dollars of consumer products in a wide variety of categories, including interactive gaming, themed entertainment, literary publishing, toiletries, mobile applications, accessories, housewares, collectibles, clothing, games, toys, live entertainment, food and beverage, and many others.
2. Fox: Global Trademark and Domain Name Portfolio
Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation, an Affiliate of Applicant, owns over 3,500 FOX-formative trademark applications and registrations in 178 countries that reflect the full range of products and services provided by the FOX Businesses. In addition, Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation owns over 5,000 FOX-formative domain names in nearly every available gTLD and ccTLD. These domain names and their associated websites are visited by hundreds of millions of consumers globally each year. The FOX brand, trademarks and domain names are invaluable assets and serve to identify the FOX Businesses as a trusted source of the highest quality goods and services globally.
3. Mission⁄Purpose for the .FOX TLD
Applicant intends to operate the .FOX TLD under the single registrant⁄single user registry model, permitting only Applicant and its Affiliates to control domain names in the second level. Applicant anticipates that it will use the .FOX TLD to create an internal resource for the FOX Businesses to share content, information, and provide services to each other; to create a destination for trusted online services and content provided by the FOX Businesses; to allow Applicant and its Affiliates to offer consumers a technologically secure and trusted environment in which to learn about and access their products, services, and content; and to enable the FOX Businesses to evolve to the host of ever-changing trends and opportunities in furnishing online content, products and services.
Applicant will initially conduct consumer marketing and technical research to determine the most effective and safest way for it and the Fox Businesses to use the .FOX TLD. During this initial period, Applicant anticipates that it will make limited use of the .FOX TLD.
Applicant has been and will continue to analyze specific potential uses of the .FOX TLD. Specific examples of such uses include allocating second level domain names that correspond with:
- Subject-matter areas of the FOX Businesses, e.g., MOVIES.FOX, NEWS.FOX, SPORTS.FOX.
- Television broadcast stations and analog channel numbers for the Fox stations, e.g., WOFL.FOX, WTXF.FOX, 11.FOX, 29.FOX.
- Entertainment properties⁄franchises owned by Fox, e.g., GLEE.FOX, SIMPSONS.FOX, XFACTOR.FOX, AVATAR.FOX.
- Characters, news anchors, or other individuals associated with the FOX Businesses, e.g., MARGESIMPSON.FOX, BILLOREILLY.FOX.
- Channel Names, e.g., NATGEO.FOX, FUEL.FOX, SPEED.FOX.
- Products sold through the FOX Businesses, e.g., DVDS.FOX, GAMES.FOX.
- Internal resources for FOX Businesses to share content and information amongst themselves, e.g., CONTENT.FOX, LEGAL.FOX.
These are a representative sampling of potential uses. Applicant will continue to analyze and explore consumer, business, technical and security issues, and has not yet committed to or excluded any potential uses. |