'Lost' strikes a chord worldwide

'Lost' follows a group of people stranded on a island after a plane crash.

LONDON - "Lost," Disney's TV drama about a plane crash on a remote island, is proving to be an unusually universal hit as its confounding plot sucks in global viewers from Laos to Latvia.

"The survivor instinct is universal," said Tom Toumazis, a senior vice president and managing director for Disney's Buena Vista International Television unit. "It's not set in a forensic lab in Vegas, or a police station in New York. The setting could be anywhere, any island, any plane."

Disney bet big on the lavishly produced show, with an international cast and US$10 million pilot episode that was the most expensive in television history. The plane crashes in the first moments, and viewers only learn about the back stories of the survivors through extended flashback sequences.

The finale of the first season - which posed roughly twice as many questions as it answered about the Island, the Hatch and the mysterious "Others" -- scored blockbuster ratings in Britain this week, with similar success in countries including Australia, France, Russia and Hungary.

The rights have even been sold to Cuba, the subject of a decades-long US trade embargo. An exemption exists for "informational materials" like TV shows.

In the United States, the show returned from a six week vacation for a second series to pull in more than 20 million viewers, after a lead-in recap caught up fans on the ins and outs of the complex plot.

And at a time when network television is in decline, "Lost" branched out beyond the airwaves with DVD sales, downloads through Apple's iTunes Music Store in the United States, and a slew of websites, blogs, podcasts and mobile phone video clips.

"You have a loyal following that wants to digest it in all forms," Toumazis said. "It's a puzzle, and people like puzzles."

Faced with a gap of several months between the first airing in the United States and episodes abroad, some fans have turned to illicit TV downloads. Australia and the UK, two of the biggest "Lost" markets outside of the U.S., are also among the biggest offenders for downloading pirated TV.

Toumazis said it is too soon to say when Disney might sell TV downloads in other markets.

"What we're doing is evaluating the success of the shows and the electronic downloading of the shows," he said. "We need to think very carefully about how it would affect our existing businesses and relationships."

"Lost" is aired in the UK on government-owned broadcaster Channel 4, which has been at the center of a dispute between broadcasters and producers about who will control new media rights for services like TV downloads and video-on-demand.

- REUTERS