(London, 15th October, 2014) - FOX announced today that their global Season 5 launch of The Walking Dead had achieved a 45% increase over Season 4. This L+1 data comes from 20 countries in all three regions: Asia, Latin America and Europe. The Season 5 premiere in Europe alone generated 68% more viewers than last year.
The Walking Dead was simultaneously launched in all 125 FOX channel markets reinforcing the company’s ‘First on FOX’ strategy and consolidating the broadcaster as vehicle for The Walking Dead franchise worldwide. This is the fifth year that The Walking Dead is released the same day in multiple markets less than 24 hours later than the US premiere. This strategy resulted in some dramatic ratings gains in key markets such as UK, Italy, Spain and Taiwan.
Hernan Lopez, President and Chief Executive Officer, FOX International Channels commented: “The fans’ appetite for The Walking Dead continues to grow. FOX’s same date release strategy within 24 hours of the US premiere means audiences all over the world know they can see the best shows first on FOX. Right now, The Walking Dead is the most successful show in the world. We are proud to have collaborated with AMC in the United States to have made this the phenomenon that it is.”
Local performance highlights include:
•UK: The Walking Dead achieved a double record in the ratings: the highest overnight for the series across all seasons and the highest ever overnight for FOX in that market.
•Spain: The Season 5 premiere beat all previous seasons’ premieres with an audience increase of 10%. The premiere obtained a 2.1% share and was The Walking Dead’s most watched premiere.
•Germany: Germany recorded the highest viewing figures in German Pay TV history, with a record breaking 268k viewers and a 2.1 share for the total day.
•Italy: The debut of the series in Italy was 30% above the premiere of Season 4.
•Philippines: The premiere of The Walking Dead Season 5 was the highest rated telecast ever on Fox Philippines. It beat the Season 4 premiere by 57%.
•Singapore: The Walking Dead Season 5 on FOX outperformed the Season 4 launch by 32%.
•Taiwan: The Walking Dead Season 5 premiere was the highest rated US drama series on FOX so far this year. The ratings increase on from S4 premiere to S5 premiere was +123% among core viewers 15 – 44 and +95% among all people 4+.
•Korea: The Walking Dead premiere and same day repeat exceeded comparable telecasts for Season 4 by 48%.
•Australia: The Walking Dead season 5 premiere was the #1 show on subscription TV on the day of broadcast.
•Thailand: The premiere and quick repeat of The Walking Dead season 5 made FOX the #1 Western general entertainment cable channel in timeslots.
•Latin America: The Walking Dead was number one in its time slot in Argentina, Colombia and Mexico.
•Chile: The Walking Dead Season 5 premiere was up 34% compared to the season 4 premiere.
The success of the series has been also reflected in social media. Fans of The Walking Dead made it a favorite trending topic in most of the markets during the premiere’s broadcasting. Fox also launched its own #DEADicated campaign and hashtag.
•UK: On the day of the UK premiere, The Walking Dead generated the second highest number of Tweets of any UK TV show, with a unique audience on Twitter of 812,707 viewing related tweets (Source: Kantar Twitter TV Ratings, Kantar Media).
•Italy: #FoxTheWalkingDead hashtag took the second spot on Twitter’s list on Italian trending topics, getting 11,700 re-tweets and a Twitter reach of more than 4.5 million.
•Spain: The Walking Dead on FOX captured 25% social audience share during the broadcasting of the episode.
•Philippines: #TWDonFOX and #TheWalkingDead trended at the top spots during the premiere broadcast.
The fantastic reception of The Walking Dead’s season 5 demonstrates once again a powerful association between AMC Networks, series producer, and FOX International Channels, the exclusive owner of the first broadcast window outside the US. This partnership has created a global phenomenon.
FOX INTERNATIONAL CHANNELS
FOX International Channels (FIC) is 21st Century FOX’s international multi-media business. We develop, produce and distribute 300+ wholly- and majority-owned entertainment, sports, factual and movie channels in 45 languages across Latin America, Europe, Asia and Africa. FIC’s core channel brands include FOX, FOX Sports, FOX Life and National Geographic Channel. FIC’s movie channels include FOX Movies, FOX Movies Premium, Star Chinese Movies and Moviecity. Our non-linear brands include FOX Play and Nat Geo Play. These networks and their related mobile, non-linear and high- definition extensions, reach over 1.725 billion cumulative households worldwide. In addition, FIC owns and operates two production studios and produces thousands of local programming hours for its wholly owned channels and third parties. In operation since: August 14, 1993.
For more information:
Europe
Belen Frias
Belen.Frias@Fox.com
+34 671 55 99 54
Global:
Liz Dolan
Liz.Dolan@fox.com
+1 310 994 0433
