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Walking Dead held back on iTunes

Walking Dead fans may be in for a long wait unless they are watching exclusively on FX.

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The Walking Dead‘s traumatic season doesn’t look like it will be available anytime soon via iTunes or platforms other than Foxtel.

According to Fairfax, Foxtel has “quietly” made a deal with producers AMC and local distributor eOne to hold back the season until next year:

This year Foxtel has quietly struck a GoT-style deal with The Walking Dead’s producers AMC and local distributor eOne to give the pay TV giant exclusive rights over Season 7 until it has finished screening the entire season. You won’t see new episodes on the Presto subscription service, only via a Foxtel home subscription or Foxtel Play. The Walking Dead screens on Foxtel’s FX channel, which is part of Foxtel Play’s current $25 p/m Drama package and will be included in the $15 p/m Pop package after December’s pricing revamp.

Judging by previous seasons, that means Australians won’t be able to buy even the first episode of Season 7 from iTunes, Google Play or Fetch TV until April next year – perhaps longer if Apple spits the dummy and holds out for longer as it did when Foxtel pulled the same stunt with Game of Thrones back in 2014. Alternatively you’ll probably need to wait until August 2017 to buy Season 7 on disc.

In the past Foxtel did make a pointed deal with HBO to hold back Game of Thrones from iTunes -which HBO clearly agreed to.

The Walking Dead is an AMC title on FX Australia, which is owned by FOX Networks rather than Foxtel Australia.

It is distributed here by eONE, who are yet to respond to enquiries.

Meanwhile Variety reports that while 17 million Americans watched the Walking Dead premiere about 600,544 downloaded it in the first 24 hours, up from last year’s season 6 premiere of 569,772.

13 Responses

  1. I was just found this when I did a Google search about season 7 of Shameless as it too appears to be witheld from iTunes/Google play which is really annoying. Could Foxtel be doing this in advance of the new streaming service?

  2. Costs aside one of the biggest problems I have when you buy something on iTunes is the size of the files, often 5 times what is needed for a HD quality, time to move to x265 format and save our HDD space!

  3. I watch it on Foxtel Play. There’s some good deals and by signing up with them you aren’t locked into a contract. My package includes FX. I pay $35 a month for three.

  4. Thanks for following up on this David.
    I understand Foxtel want a return on their investment but until they are competitive with other streaming sites they won’t get my business.

  5. Given the ridiculous amount of ads that were shoved in to the premiere (at least for the evening prime-time repeats), I wouldn’t be surprised if next week’s ep makes “New Record For Piracy” headlines…

  6. And they seriously wonder why Australians are the largest pirates. Even those that wanted to fairly pay for it via iTunes get the shaft and have to wait until next year? Ridiculous.

  7. So Foxtel makes the show unavailable for legal purchase (other than watching on Foxtel) then they’ll whine about piracy. Surely they learned their lesson from pulling this stunt with GOT, but apparently not *shakes head*

      1. Huh? Clearly this was a Foxtel idea. FX and eOne had to agree but I doubt they approached Foxtel with the idea to lock it down!

        As usual, US iTunes can continue to offer the episode, but only in Australia is it held back. They really don’t understand what drives people to privacy!

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