“Touch”: Fox Show Will Start Worldwide

This is interesting. From yestertoday’s NYT:

Television shows typically have their debuts in the United States first and arrive in other countries later — sometimes months or even years later.

But this week, News Corporation is staging a worldwide premiere of “Touch,” a new drama starring Kiefer Sutherland that celebrates the very kind of interconnectivity that will allow the show to start almost simultaneously in 100 countries and territories. In the United States it will appear on the Fox network on Thursday night; in Canada, on Global Television; in Germany, on ProSieben; in Russia, on Channel One.

Another sign of the increased ‘internationalization’ of content created in the United States, right? Yes. But it’s also a reflection of two other business dynamics:

Executives at News Corporation and its competitors say that “Touch” signifies a new way of doing business that attracts multinational advertisers (Unilever is a sponsor of the series around the world) and attacks online piracy [emphasis added].

Per the latter, the creator of “Touch,” writer-producer Tim Kiring talks about how when another one of his TV series “Heroes” debuted in the U.S. in 2007, thousands of fans in France gathered for an event there. “Every single person there had seen every episode. They had all gotten it illegally off the Internet,” Kiring said.

So the decision to launch “Touch” in 100 countries at the same time appears to be a nod toward one of the prevailing theories about how to deal with piracy: Make it easier for viewers to see content legally.

Then there’s the other aspect: Attracting multinational advertisers. Rolling out “Touch” simultaneously in multiple international markets made the project attractive to Unilever which is sponsoring the show worldwide. Indeed series start Kiefer Sutherland has just returned from a global promotional tour paid for not by Fox… but by Unilever.

For Unilever, “the increasing globalization of the content people have access to every day” is a “fantastic opportunity,” said Keith Weed, the company’s chief marketing officer.

So the internationalization of film and TV programming produced in the U.S. continues to gain steam, now for an increasing set of reasons.

Once again, writers would be smart to pay attention to this trend.

For more of the NYT article, go here.

Here is a trailer for the TV series “Touch”: