Fox Reality goes 'Round'

Net buys McGregor motorbike miniseries

By JOHN DEMPSEY

Fledgling 24/7 cable net Fox Reality has bought rerun rights from the Bravo channel to the unscripted miniseries "Long Way Round," which follows Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman on a 20,000-mile motorcycle trip.

The original run on Bravo earlier this year consisted of six hourlong episodes. That will expand to seven hours on Fox Reality with the addition of what it calls "never-before-seen footage."

The first episode, which shows McGregor and Boorman going through a three-month austerity regimen to build themselves up for the journey, premieres on Fox Reality in primetime on Dec. 12. The first marathon of all seven episodes takes place Dec. 18.

To ramp up visibility, the network has set up a sweepstakes that viewers can enter through Fox Reality's Web site. Grand prize is a leather jacket autographed by McGregor; 500 other winners will get a book and DVD of "Long Way Round."

McGregor and Boorman gun their bikes through Germany, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, the Ukraine, Russia, Mongolia, Alaska and Canada.