In what may be a first for a major network comedy, Fox’s new show Ghosted will debut on Twitter days before its scheduled television premiere. It’s part of a new partnership that the network and the social media giant announced Tuesday.
The show stars Adam Scott and Craig Robinson as two regular guys who get roped into becoming paranormal investigators for an organization called the Bureau Underground. It kind of looks like Men In Black, but with ghosts (and also everyone’s worse at their jobs).
Ghosted will stream on the show’s Twitter at 9:00pm ET for the nights of Sept. 21-24, and then make its scheduled broadcast debut Oct. 1. That means Twitter users get four shots to catch the pilot before it ever airs on TV. There will also reportedly be “added touches” as part of the deal, like a special introduction to the series and a Twitter Q&A included in the limited screening run
The deal is part of a larger announcement from the network about Twitter streaming. Fox also announced a new nightly pre-show for Empire, which will stream on Twitter Wednesdays at 7:30pm through the fall season. And, beginning at 11:00pm Wednesday, Twitter will also host a marathon of their returning comedy The Mick. All of the streams will be watchable via the shows’ official Twitter accounts.
Todd Swidler, global head of live video business at Twitter, summed up the thinking behind the deal in a statement: “The discussion of TV shows has always taken place on Twitter and it is a natural evolution to add TV premieres and live pre-shows to our video experience.”
Previously, the major networks have flirted with Twitter as a space to debut a season premiere of an established show with an embedded link, but this will be the platform’s first major series premiere using their built-in streaming functionality.