In 1986 the Fox Broadcasting Company suddenly appeared on televisions across America, its unstated mission to serve the un-served, at least in terms of entertainment. Its owner was an Australian newspaper magnate, Rupert Murdoch; its chairman and CEO, Barry Diller, a self-styled programming revolutionary himself. Out came a show conceived to be the “anti–Cosby Show” (in response to the hugely popular NBC sitcom starring Bill Cosby as a prosperous physician and occasionally befuddled father). Married…with Children was the chronicle of Al Bundy, an unhappy salesman of women’s shoes; his lazy, lubricious, and self-indulgent wife, Peggy; their promiscuous and blazingly stupid daughter, Kelly; and their alienated, sarcastic son, Bud.

Tim Wu, The Attention Merchants, loc. 621