In May 1985, News Corporation, a media company owned by Australian publishing magnate Rupert Murdoch that had mainly served as a newspaper publisher at the time of the TCF Holdings deal, agreed to pay $2.55 billion to acquire independent television stations in six major U.S. cities from the John Kluge-run broadcasting company Metromedia: WNEW-TV (now WNYW) in New York City, WTTG in Washington, D.C., KTTV in Los Angeles, KRIV in Houston, WFLD in Chicago, and KRLD-TV (now KDAF) in Dallas.

On December 31, 1986, WXNE-TV in Boston (later renamed WFXT on January 19, 1987), became the seventh Fox-owned property,[5] and the first to be acquired separately from News Corporation's 1986 purchase of Metromedia's six television stations.

[9] Because NFL games generate high ratings, owning these stations outright allows FTS to also collect the local advertising revenue, as well as use them as leverage during retransmission consent negotiations with cable and satellite providers.

Renaissance Broadcasting had also sold KDVR in Denver, along with its satellite station KFCT in Fort Collins, Colorado, to FTS on November 15, 1994, in exchange for acquiring KDAF in Dallas.

One of original core stations that FTS acquired from Metromedia, it was set to lose Fox programming to that market's longtime CBS affiliate, New World's KDFW.

New World thus established a trust company in preparation for its sale of WGHP in High Point, North Carolina and WBRC in Birmingham, Alabama, which it would place the stations into in September and October 1994 respectively.

[12][13] Under the arrangement, New World owned the licenses of WBRC and WGHP, while its previous owner Citicasters continued to control their operations under outsourcing agreements.

When New World's sale to Fox closed in 1997, ten stations became Fox owned-and-operated stations: KSAZ-TV in Phoenix; WTVT in Tampa, Florida; WAGA-TV in Atlanta; WJBK in Detroit; KTBC in Austin, Texas; KDFW in Dallas; WDAF-TV in Kansas City, Missouri; KTVI in St. Louis; WJW in Cleveland; and WITI in Milwaukee.

On February 22, 2006, FTS announced that all nine of their non-Fox outlets will be charter affiliates of a new service known as MyNetworkTV, which commenced operations on September 5, 2006, with telenovela programming that was original to be syndicated.

On December 21, 2007, FTS announced that it would sell eight smaller-market stations to Local TV, LLC, a division of Oak Hill Capital Partners.

[31] On June 24, 2014, FTS announced it would acquire its existing San Francisco Bay Area affiliate KTVU, along with its duopoly sister independent station KICU-TV, from Cox Media Group in exchange for WFXT in Boston and WHBQ-TV in Memphis.

[39] Tribune then agreed on October 17 to extend its affiliation agreement for KCPQ through July 2018, and pay increased reverse compensation fees to Fox for the broadcasting of the network's programming beginning in January 2015.

[42] Later in the year, FTS also agreed to carry Weigel Broadcasting's Heroes & Icons network on subchannels of 11 major market stations.

[44][45] On May 7, 2017, it was reported that Sinclair Broadcast Group was nearing a deal to purchase Tribune Media,[46][47] and that 21st Century Fox had dropped its bid for the company.

[52][53][54] In January 2018, the Financial Times reported that FTS was finalizing a deal to acquire as many as 10 Fox affiliates from Sinclair, as part of an effort to reach FCC approval of its proposed acquisition of Tribune Media.

This deal would bring several former O&Os previously divested to Local TV, LLC (which was acquired by Tribune) back under Fox ownership.

[55][56] On May 9, 2018, Fox announced it would purchase KCPQ, KDVR, KSTU, KTXL in Sacramento, KSWB-TV in San Diego, WJW in Cleveland and WSFL-TV, the CW affiliate for Miami-Fort Lauderdale.

The move would give Fox stations in the home markets for the Seattle Seahawks, Denver Broncos, Cleveland Browns and Miami Dolphins as the network takes over the Thursday Night Football package from CBS and NBC.

On January 13, 2020, FTS launched Fox Soul, a free ad-supported streaming television (FAST) channel targeting the African American community.