Following fresh on the chapped heels of today’s announcement that Mediaworks is reviving the tired format show Dancing With the Stars, the cash-strapped channel has revealed it’s going to be replaying 17 year old news programmes in its 6pm weeknight slot, starting next week.
“Television is a fluid medium,” deputy assistant chief programming publicist Jess LeVermihair-Terdye told WWNews over cocktails. “And the more fluid we shout each other, the less money there is to spend on original ideas and people who know one when they stumble over it. So instead of wasting available resources and cheap interns who sit around waiting for ‘news’ to happen, we thought we’d play some items that are already on hand.”
Mediaworks has had extensive experience in the past buying used television formats and adapting them to suit local conditions, Ms LeVermihair-Terdye said. “But we’re sorting of moving on from that – and as we have shelves full of local news product that’s only been used once, or twice at the most, it makes a lot of sense to give them a new lease on life. Well, not a lease exactly – more like a very low rent.”
Other new old shows in the pipeline are “Melody Rules – Again”, CSI Twizel (Mortimer’s Patch with overdubs) and that perennial favourite Paul Henry In the Morning So You Don’t Have to Stay Up Late Just to Change to Jones, starting its predicted three show run next Tuesday.
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