Asia Pacific – FOX International Channels (FIC) announced that it has picked up the 5th season of popular TV series The Walking Dead, for its territories across Asia Pacific. This follows AMC’s recent announcement that they have renewed the zombie apocalypse drama series for a further season in the U.S.

Joon Lee, Executive Vice President of Content and Communications, Asia Pacific and the Middle East at FOX International Channels said, “We are very happy that we will be able to welcome the fifth season of The Walking Dead back to FIC. It has grown from a television series into a global pop culture phenomenon and it is very exciting for us to have been a part of that growth in introducing the zombie fever to Asia.”

The Walking Dead Season 4’s recent opening episode cumulatively reached 83% more viewers than Season 3’s premiere across six countries – Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, Taiwan, Korea and Australia. The first episode of Season 4 made FOX Movies Premium the top Western Movies Channel in both Singapore and Malaysia while FOX enjoyed similar success in the Philippines as the No. 1 Western General Entertainment Channel and FX was the top subscription channel in Australia. In Taiwan, The Walking Dead became the highest-rated western television series since 2005, making STAR Movies the No. 2 pay-TV channel and in Korea, FOX became the No. 3 cable channel overall.

In the U.S., the return of the 4th season broke all of its previous records, with the first episode boasting an audience of 16.1 million, 10.4 million of which were in the 18-49 bracket, a series high and an all new record for cable television.