The Betoota Advocate set to produce satirical TV show with Warner Bros
The team behind popular satirical news site The Betoota Advocate say they have rejected multiple offers to produce sketch comedy for television in the past because they won’t be “put in a box”.
But now they have teamed up with Warner Bros International Television Production Australia (WBITVP) for a major television project which seems to defy description.
The Betoota Advocate presents itself as an independent regional newspaper from far-west Queensland which prides itself on reporting “fair and just news with the authenticity that rivals only the salt on the sunburnt earth that surrounds us here in the Queensland Channel Country”.
They boast that their cheeky news stories, like Tuesday’s “Pope Francis Walks Out Of Interview With Ch7 After Reporter Admits He Hasn’t Read The Bible”, reach four million readers each month.
The Betoota stories are so close to the truth they have been picked up as real news by major media outlets more than once, including by the Today show which reported on a (fake) parking officer who gave himself a ticket.
Warners and Betoota are now in development for a slate of “premium, unscripted productions” which do not involve Chaser-style stunts and will definitely not be a scripted series like TV news satire Frontline. All we know is Warner will bring the TV experience and Betoota will bring the jokes.
So what will fans of the Betoota Advocate website and the Betoota Advocate podcast expect from the show?
“Ever since we started, the pitch we always get is ‘hey, do a sketch comedy show or do a weekly panel show’,” says Antony Stockdale, the director of Diamantina Media, a digital media company formed by the five guys behind Betoota.
Diamantina Media produces podcasts for other clients including Chat 10 Looks 3 for Annabel Crabb and Leigh Sales.
“I don’t think we’re in the same box as people like the Chaser, we wanted to do something different.
“We don’t do stunts. We don’t try and gotcha people.”
The managing director of WBITVP Australia, Michael Brooks, said the distinctive and “bitingly satirical” Betoota Advocate has won a huge following and they want to craft a TV show from their unique style.
Stockdale says the approach from Warner Bros was successful because it didn’t come with any expectations of a formula.
The team behind “Australia’s oldest newspaper”, which includes the fictional characters Clancy Overell and Errol Parker, who prefer to remain anonymous, want to step away from the daily news fare they currently write about and tell broader stories about the Australian character.
“We think there’s some great stories to be told about Australia in particular: iconic moments in Australian history and how they all played out, or probably played out” Stockdale says. “It’s Betoota, so it’s not going to be exactly how it played out.
“There’s great stories like [business men Christopher] Skase and [Alan] Bond and really sort of iconic things like that, and just sort of revisiting some of these iconic Australian moments.
“And it’s also just what is Australia. What ties us together what sets us apart? We are 25 million people, 120 religions, 1800 towns and one Big Banana.”
The TV show will be a lot like the news stories which, Stockdale says, are all about “trying to cut through what Australians are really thinking but maybe no one in the media is actually saying”.
Warner Bros in Australia produces The Bachelor, The Masked Singer, Celebrity Apprentice, Selling Houses Australia and Dancing with the Stars.