That wasn’t an accident. It was the product of a deliberate strategy set in motion when Barry Diller launched the Fox network in 1986 with a mission to disrupt the television status quo. Back then, the Big Three—ABC, CBS, and NBC—offered a steady stream of safe, interchangeable programming. As the scrappy new contender, Fox had to break the mold. Diller, along with the programming chief, Garth Ancier, set out to build a network that was alternative by design and saw being different as a virtue, not a risk.