Kim’s channel goes global
Soap opera fans tired of Netflix will be able to tune in to the best dramas from the hermit kingdom of North Korea.
For as little as NZ$34 a month, subscribers can binge watch the dictatorship’s unique brand of earnest singing, marching soldiers and weeping newscasters.
Shiwani TV will broadcast state-run Korean Central TV and its radio station anywhere in the world from the second half of the year. Among the content available are soaps about soldiers weeding out disloyal class enemies, and sitcoms from gleaming Pyongyang apartments.
There are also plans for an app for users to have all the latest news and gossip about Supreme Leader Kim Jong-un beamed directly to their smartphones.
Korean Central TV, North Korea’s only legally accessible channel, shows a steady stream of missile launches, military parades and bad news about everywhere which isn’t North Korea.
The new venture is the brainchild of the Chollima Front, which describes itself as an independent initiative of friendship between Poland and North Korea.
The service will be made available worldwide, including in the United States and neighbouring South Korea, where it could breach national security laws and be illegal to access.
Viewers can look forward to the emotional commentary provided by Ri Chun-hee, a veteran newsreader, at moments of historical significance.
The new service could fill the gap left after two state-run North Korean websites were shut down in January.
As for the Chollima Front, it is reported to only have about 12 members, mostly Poles, but also Germans and Canadians. “Chollima Front is a very small organisation whose members are a few young Polish people with communist political views,” a Polish North Korea and East Asia studies scholar, who requested anonymity, told Radio Free Asia. – Telegraph Group