SADDAM HANGING gets top viewer ratings, prompting establishment of.... . . ~~~ “The EXECUTION Channel” ~~~

FunkyPix2’s Indian reporter discovers Saddam asleep
on a beach at Puri, Orissa, India.

First it was the DISCOVERY Channel, then the HISTORY Channel. Now the latest specialist station is to be the EXECUTION Channel.

Viewer ratings for Saddam Hussein’s execution video were so sky-high that FunkyPix2 executives and Mr Thaksin Shinawatra were inspired to invest in a new TV satellite channel devoted entirely to capital punishment and torture. Theme music: “Pictures at an Execution”, by Kevin B. Mussorgsky.

Their new partnership will amalgamate leading website FunkyPix2 with Mr Thaksin’s company Ample Rich2, which still boasts discount access to an Asian telecommunications satellite. Executives predict a total rout of the viewer-ratings battle, saying that the state-sponsored murder of Saddam attracted over 980 million online viewers, not to mention flow-on television news footage rights.

“It is irrelevant whether the individual viewer agrees or disagrees with the death penalty”, said a spokesperson for FunkyPix2. “What matters is that they have the opportunity to view salacious raw footage of gory deaths, if only as a means of helping them to arrive at their own moral stance. Obviously you cannot achieve that without first consulting the facts”, he insisted. “The EXECUTION Channel shall provide this essential public service. The government is failing to provide it by insisting on censoring executions, so we have to fill the void out of our own budget”.

Mr Thaksin declined to say whether he would claim tax-exemption on the grounds of 'Donations to Charity'.

An 1820 woodcut of a mass public hanging at Newgate Prison, England.

Mr Thaksin pointed out that there once was a time (not long ago) when hangings in England and America were public events. Some were formal, some were lynchings, but each was treated as public entertainment, complete with seating, food-stalls, souvenir sellers, buskers selling broadside song-sheets about the victims, etc.

“Executions should be brought back into the Public Sector”, he argued. He recalled the quaint English habit of yelling out "HATS OFF" moments before the hangman was to pull the lever. This was not out of respect for those about to die, but rather because the people further back demanded those at the front remove their hats so as not to obscure their view (True! Read more here, and see the pictures... bwaaha ha ha ha ha…)

Mr Thaksin said he intended to set up a Pay-As-You-Listen Phone line (dial 1-2-3-HANG) where recordings of the last requests and sounds of execution of prisoners could be heard in hi-fi stereo. In this regard he said he was negotiating a bulk deal with China, which executes up to 10,000 prisoners a year. However, Mr Thaksin dismissed allegations of complicity with the illegal trade in body parts in China. “I always leave that side of the business to others because I’m a moral person. Buddhist and all that”.

Local media spin in Thailand, 2003, making out that it was Burma’s fault that the War on Drugs failed, despite more than 2500 extra-judicial summary executions by Thaksin's police. He had been a policeman himself.

“Also I have an enormous private archive of films showing graphic street shootings during my highly successful War on Drugs”, he pointed out. “Our viewers will always have brand new episodes… no dull re-runs like National Geographic Channel”, he added.

“In particular, the Execution Channel Live NewsHour will keep our viewers roped to their screens, unlike our competitor’s programming. We have qualified, sadistic reporters stationed in Baghdad, Gaza, Texas, Guantanamo and LA. All of them are former executioners themselves”.

Mr Funky added out that potential advertisers had expressed enormous interest, especially in really BIG capital punishment events. He had already had enquiries from Paintball Clubs, Funeral Parlours, the Second-Coming Association, the "We-Hate-Diana" Club, the American Gun Lobby, and Tory Fox-Hunters UK Inc., as well as generous offers of sponsorship from the Republican Party in Washington.

“You can’t get a fairer balance than that”, he suggested. "We’ll run promos on Fox, too”.