It had to happen eventually; took exactly 6 months; and now TopTV has drawn its first blood (with not a vampire TV show but a zombie drama) by grabbing the first big, buzz-worthy and must-see, brand-new show that clearly would have been on M-Net.
The already highly-praised, and utterly compelling new zombie drama The Walking Dead that just started in America and will be shown worldwide and in South Africa a mere 3 days later, would clearly have been on M-Net had TopTV not existed (below I'll tell you exactly why).
The Walking Dead that starts tomorrow, Tuesday, November 2 at 21:20 on Fox FX (TopTV 110), stars Andrew Lincoln as police officer Rick Grimes who have to survive and lead a group of survivor to safety in a post-apocalyptic current world suddenly changed and overrun by zombies.
It's very clearly conceivable that if South Africa didn't now have the premium Fox FX channel on the TopTV bouquet, that The Walking Dead would have very probably made its debut on M-Net first. M-Net has great international distributor relationships with both Fox International and AMC. If you look at its programming, M-Net grabbed the vampire drama True Blood which is very similar to The Walking Dead, which clearly would have fit with it schedule - a big-buzzed about drama. M-Net has also already taken acclaimed AMC shows like Mad Men and Breaking Bad, indicating that The Walking Dead would have been something the pay broadcaster would have been interested in as well. Then there's Fox's international massive roll-out and global push for The Walking Dead. Mmm. Does that sound like something M-Net would have jumped at, given its giddy alread locked-in similar strategy for showing episodes of The Event just 36 hours after America?
ALSO READ: Zombies ''invade'' Johannesburg as part of global stunt for the new The Walking Dead starting on TopTV's FX channel.
