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| Newstopia | |
|---|---|
 Newstopia intertitle | |
| Created by | Shaun Micallef |
| Directed by | Kevin Carlin Bradley J Howard[1] |
| Starring | Shaun Micallef Kat Stewart Ben Anderson Nicholas Bell Peter Houghton Julie Eckersley |
| Country of origin | Australia |
| Original language | English |
| No. of seasons | 3 |
| No. of episodes | 30 |
| Production | |
| Running time | 30 minutes per episode (including commercials) |
| Production company | Crackerjack Productions |
| Original release | |
| Network | SBS One |
| Release | 10 October 2007 (2007-10-10)[2] – 3 December 2008 (2008-12-3) |
| Related | |
| Micallef Tonight (2003) The Micallef P(r)ogram(me) (1998) Welcher & Welcher (2003) | |
Newstopia (stylised asNEWStopiä) is an Australian half-hour satirical comedy programme hosted byShaun Micallef. The first season premiered at10:00 pm onSBS TV on 10 October 2007 and concluded on3 December 2007. A second season began on 27 February 2008[3] and concluded on 30 April 2008.[citation needed] A third season of the show screened from 1 October to 3 December 2008.[4] The show was developed by Micallef,Gary McCaffrie, Michael Ward andJason Stephens, with McCaffrie and Ward working as writers on the programme.[citation needed] A fourth season in 2009 was planned, but cancelled due to production clashes withTalkin' 'Bout Your Generation.[5]
The show's contributors includeMatt Cameron,Doug MacLeod,Dave O'Neil,Tony Moclair andRichard Marsland.[citation needed]
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The show was presented in the style of anews bulletin, withShaun Micallef acting asanchor. It began with a statement by Micallef about history and/or news and its relation to the show. The rest of the program featured segments often detailing factual events, but told from a humorous or satirical angle. Like much of Micallef's earlier work, the humour depicted was mostlysurreal, with some socialsatire.[citation needed]
The program included several fictional advertisements placed throughout the real commercial breaks, dressed up to appear as authentic commercials for SBS programs, for example,Inspektor Herring, a parody ofInspector Rex. Because the commercials were fictional creations ofNewstopia, for the first two seasons, SBS broadcast them with the SBSwatermark at the bottom right corner, whereas genuine commercials did not show the watermark. Starting in the third season, the show removed the SBS watermark during the fictional advertisements.[citation needed]
The show also featuredsubliminal parodies ofPope Benedict XVI in which his image was replaced with one ofNosferatu, long enough to be noticed, but not long enough for the viewer to have a clear idea of what they had just seen.[citation needed]
Following the conclusion of each episode's initial broadcast, theNewstopia website featured aweb stream of the current week's episode. This was only available for 7 days, and only to Australian residents, after which it was taken down and replaced by the latest broadcast. International visitors were blocked by an IP blocker. A guestbook was also available for commenting on the newest episode.
