Michael Thorn is President of the FOX Television Network division of FOX Entertainment. He is responsible for overseeing the platform’s entire portfolio of primetime entertainment, spanning drama, comedy, animated and unscripted series and specials, which debut on broadcast and stream on Hulu, Disney+ and the new FOX One. In this role, he also manages the network’s scripted, unscripted and casting teams.

For FOX’s upcoming 2025-26 Season, Thorn oversees a strong slate of new series, including this fall’s Celebrity Weakest Link with Jane Lynch, and The Masked Singer’s Ken Jeong and FOX Sports’ Erin Andrews hosting the all-new competition series 99 to Beat. New for midseason are dramas Best Medicine, starring Josh Charles, Abigail Spencer and Annie Potts, and dramatic thriller Memory of a Killer with Patrick Dempsey and Michael Imperioli, as well as the reimagined Fear Factor: The Next Chapter with Johnny Knoxville, and for the Easter and Passover season, the biblical event series The Faithful with Minnie Driver and Jeffrey Donovan.

Under Thorn’s leadership, the network continues to deliver strong results, again ranking as the #1 network across key Adult & Male 18-49 and 25-54 demographics for the 2024-25 Season and emerging as the only network to grow year-over-year across all key demos. Among the season’s highlights, FOX had the #1 unscripted debut with Extracted, the #1 game show The Floor hosted by Rob Lowe, the #1 comedy Universal Basic Guys and television’s Top 5 highest-rated cooking shows with Gordon Ramsay’s Hell’s Kitchen, Kitchen Nightmares, Next Level Chef, MasterChef and Gordon Ramsay’s Secret Service. In addition, as part of a notable resurgence in broadcast television, FOX’s medical drama Doc, starring Molly Parker, registered 4.24 billion multiplatform minutes in its first season and captured an 8.1 million average per episode audience. Thorn renewed Doc for a 22-episode second season with Felicity Huffman joining the cast as a series regular.

Thorn is also responsible for FOX’s iconic roster of animated hits that encompass the network’s Sunday Animation Domination block, including Emmy Award winner The Simpsons, the longest-running scripted series in television history; Emmy winner Bob’s Burgers; groundbreaking comedy Family Guy; and the return of American Dad! FOX’s new animated comedies include Krapopolis, from Emmy-winning creator Dan Harmon; Grimsburg, starring and executive-produced by Emmy winner Jon Hamm; and the animated comedy Universal Basic Guys.

Prior to being named President of FOX Television Network in April 2024, Thorn was President, Scripted Programming for FOX Entertainment. In this role, he was responsible for all scripted content, development and casting at the network. He also oversaw FOX Entertainment Studios, where he was instrumental in FOX’s domestic and international co-production strategy and oversaw select original scripted live-action and animated content for FOX’s AVOD streaming service, Tubi. Thorn was also responsible for Bento Box, including the development and sale of acclaimed third-party animated comedies such as Prime Video’s Hazbin Hotel, and he continues to serve on the Bento Box Steering Committee.

Previously, Thorn was Executive Vice President of Development at 20th Century Fox Television, where he led scripted development efforts, including both the comedy and drama teams. At the studio, he developed dozens of successful dramas and comedies, including breakout hit This Is Us, which, in its first season, was nominated for 10 Emmy Awards and won the Humanitas Prize for Drama; gripping musical drama Empire; and hit medical procedural The Resident; as well as comedies Life in Pieces and Speechless.

Thorn joined FOX in 2010 as Senior Vice President, Drama Development, after working at Lost Marbles Television, where he oversaw all scripted television and served as an executive producer on Teen Wolf, Supreme Courtships and Cop House. Previously, he served as Drama Development Team Head at NBC, helping to develop such hits as Heroes and Friday Night Lights; and Vice President, Primetime Series, for NBC Studios, where he oversaw all drama development and current programming for the studio, including series Las Vegas, Crossing Jordan and Boomtown. Prior to NBC, Thorn served as Vice President, Series Development and Programming at the USA Network, where he helped develop the cable network’s flagship series, Monk, as well as Touching Evil, Traffic, Peacemakers and Red Skies. He also developed shows for Big Ticket Television and La Plante Productions LTD.