Hulu Japan’s premiere of the Russian mega hit zombie drama series The Day After is to feature windows across multiple platforms, initially available on the SVoD platform on October 5th, 2018, day-and-date with the DVD (rental/sell-through) which is going to be published through FOX Home Entertainment Japan. BS Nippon (BS Nippon Corporation, which is owned by Nippon TV and is a sister company to Hulu Japan) will begin airing the series on November 10th, 2018.
To promote the launch of the series on Hulu Japan, the first episode of Season 1 will air on Nippon TV (terrestrial) on October 6 as an episode of the programme Hulu Episode-1 Theater. The show will then be available on TVer (an ADVoD platform jointly operated by top five terrestrial networks) for catch-up for one week.
Hulu Japan has acquired all rights for Japan for the series from Art Pictures in Russia and has sub-licensed it both to FOX HE and to BS Nippon. The Day After was originally aired on CTC in Russia in 2013 and run up to a third season so far.
“We are thrilled to introduce our first acquisition of a Russian series to the audience in Japan,” declared Kazufumi Nagasawa, Chief Content Officer, Hulu Japan. “We believe The Day After has a huge potential in Japan given the popularity of The Walking Dead and other zombie dramas here.”
“Needless to say, exclusivity is something we do care about, as others do, so it is very unusual that a series is premiered in Japan on OTT, DVD and TV simultaneously. However, we thought that there could be a huge synergy for promotion due to the ‘multiple exposure’ achieved by launching across multiple platforms and have decided to prioritise overall exposure this time. We hope that the show will be enjoyed by as many users as possible in Japan and that we continue to be able to introduce outstanding shows from around the world.”
“Japan is a new reality for us, a fantastic country with a very demanding and sophisticated audience,” commented Vyacheslav Murugov, CTC Channel and CTC Media CEO. “We’re proud and thrilled to have the possibility to show our series to the Japanese viewers. We’re happy to have such strong partners in this deal, both our long-standing collaborators Art Pictures, and such a powerful and respected player as Hulu Japan. Our global ambitions are to create interesting TV content for people all over the world and to promote Russia as the country where content is born. This event is a huge and important step in our journey.”
“We are interested in developing industry cooperation with Japan. Japan’s film industry – the third largest one in the world,” stated Dmitriy Rudovskiy, Art Pictures CEO. “Of course, we are interested in work in this field. Japan is certainly one of our priority partners for cooperation in the Asia-Pacific region. We are proud that Hulu Japan have chosen our TV series. Hope that the Japanese audience will like The Day After as well.
Source: https://advanced-television.com/2018/08/20/hulu-japan-new-launch-window-strategy/
