Sky1 Acquires UK Rights To CBS' James Patterson Summer Series 'Zoo' – TVWise

Sky1 has closed a deal with CBS Studios International to acquire the exclusive first run UK broadcast rights to CBS’ upcoming 13 episode summer series Zoo, which is based on the James Patterson novel of the same name.
Zoo is described as a global thriller about a wave of violent animal attacks against humans sweeping the planet. As the assaults become more cunning, coordinated and ferocious, the story becomes a race to unlock the mystery of the global pandemic before it’s too late. The drama series is produced by CBS Television Studios and stars James Wolk, Kristen Connolly, Billy Burke, Nonso Anozie and Nora Arnezeder.
CBS Studios International announced that they had sold the show to Sky1 as part of a wider announcement, revealing that ProSiebenSat.1 Group in Germany, TF1 in France, CTV in Canada, RAI in Italy, Mediaset Españ in Spain, Network Ten in Australia, M-Net in Pan-Africa, yes in Israel, AXN in India, FX in Turkey, DR3 in Denmark, TV 2 in Norway, nc+ in Poland and MTV in Finland had also acquired Zoo.
With this round of international deals, CBS has now gone three-for-three on their push into high-end scripted Summer dramas, with all such previous efforts (Under The Dome and Extant) rating well in the United States and fuelling a large number of sales on the international market. “Building on this success, we are thrilled to have Zoo join our roster of high-quality, scripted event programming, and we look forward to presenting the series to broadcast audiences around the world”, said CBS’ Armando Nunez.
This marks the first licensing deal that a UK broadcaster has concluded for a high-profile US scripted series since the recent LA Screenings. A slew of deals are currently in the works, with Blindspot, The X-Files Revival and The Muppets amongst those driving heated bidding wars at present. Deals are also understood to be in the works for last season’s Black-ish and Fresh Off The Boat. Zoo joins a growing roster of first run scripted imports on Sky1 that includes, amongst others, The Last Ship, Legends, The Simpons, Arrow, The Flash, Modern Family, NCIS: Los Angeles and Hawaii Five-0. The first season of Zoo is expected to premiere on Sky1 later this year.