WWNews branches out into TV, announces line-up

In many ways it had to happen. Most of the world’s newspapers, including the three not owned by Rupert Murdoch, have, in recent times, had to face hard decisions, not the least of which was what to do, eventually, about the over-use of commas. Almost as pressing has been the way the world is turning its back on newsprint, paperboys and good journalism to embrace the new media. And not just the wireless, although crystal sets will be with us for a good while longer, but television and its new baby sister the World Wide Web.

To compete, newspapers have had to think big – the Dargaville Argus-Courier has just bought shares in a synfuel plant in Kaikohe while others have thought laterally bigger and are now producing facsimile versions of their print editions on the internet, with some success.

Here at WWNews, we’re smarter than that. We have a feeling that the internet is not going to last as long as some of those Flash Harry types are saying it will. We’re going to make a move all right, to broaden our audiences as it were, but not in a risky venture reliant on the goodwill of some floppy disks and a few megabucks of RAM – WWNews is going to be on the telly.

WWNTV has been in the planning stages for at least the past seven minutes and things are looking good for the commencement of broadcasting in the New Year. To hit the ground running we’ve had to take shortcuts, not in the quality area of course – we’ll continue to maintain the sort of standards that WWNews readers have come to expect – but we’ve decided to take a leaf from the FTA broadcasters’ book. All right, we’ve copied everything.

Here’s what to expect:

17 new channels – WWNTV1 will be our premium channel showing the sort of programmes that sound exactly like the ones we all want to watch. WWNTV1.5 will broadcast the same content at WWNTV1 but five minutes later so if you miss something, you’ve got time to make a cuppa or have a tinkle before catching it again.

WWNTV2 will rebroadcast WWNTV1.5 but at twice the speed, commencing at midnight and again at midday. WWNTV3 will be a mosaic of 1, 1.5 and 2 aimed at ADHD viewers waiting for the Ritalin to kick in and WWNTV4 thru 12 will carry delayed coverage of LTSA’s North Island motorway cameras.

WWNTV13 will just be a webcam pointing at Noeline over the fence’s telly as she watches some funny stuff at times and never pulls her curtains, while 14 and 15 will feature sports from around the world cleverly presented so they appear to be fuzzy dubs of old tapes hired from the library. And WWNTV16 will be our specialty nostalgia channel – white noise 24/7 so viewers can pretend they’re back in 1962 or haven’t paid the Sky sub.

On WWNTV1 you can expect to see our flagship programmes, like documentaries about HMS Ark Royal. USS Nimitz and HMNZS no just kidding. There will be a full complement of news and current affairs programming each night at the convenient time of 5.17pm running for over a minute and half, with opinion, comment and poutiness from some of the nation’s most recent graduates from playcentre and kindergarten media studies groups.

Weather is vitally important and very cheap to produce which means three full hours nightly of opinion, comment and the occasional useful forecast from presenters highly trained in the pronunciation of “cirrocumulus” padded out by viewers’ photos.

Too much fact makes for dull television so we’ll make sure your entertainment taste buds are tickled totally with regular episodes of our new talent show “Kiwis Kan Kompete” where New Zealanders from all over New Zealand try to impress the judges with Stan Walker songs. No, real judges. From the Singaporean High Court. Sudden death takes on a whole new, and literally literal, meaning.

Of course, where would we be with a cooking show, or two? And a renovation show, or three? In a happier place perhaps, but too bad – WWNTV has pulled out all the stops with Dream Kitchens from Hell where ordinary graduates from the Robyn Malcolm Academy of Media Training and Being Taken Seriously compete against each other, the clock and a grumpy old bastard called Clive to build themselves a kitchen out of old Shortland Street sets and serve a three course meal plus wine made from ingredients they steal from Countdown. (Don’t worry, we’ll refund the checkout kids.)

And the under-fives haven’t been forgotten, apart from by their parents otherwise they’d be having quality family time, because we’ve managed to obtain from TVNZ at no small cost a year’s worth of Mike Hosking’s closing comments from Seven Sharp. WWNTV Merchandising will be offering a companion Hoskie doll, with a full set of blunt pins.

All this and more – no, just all this – is coming to your screen soon. And the cost? There is none, it’s totally free. Or will be, once we get the satellite launched. Until then, you’ll have to make do with the print version. Or watch the shopping channel. There are some great Thanksgiving specials coming up, apparently.