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Surprise summer TV hit: 'North Korea's Got Talent'

By ANDY BOROWITZ
Published July 23, 2006

Kim Jong Il's first-ever reality show heats up the Nielsens.

Just weeks after taunting his neighbors and the West with a provocative missile test, North Korean President Kim Jong Il has launched his first-ever reality show, a surprise summer hit called North Korea's Got Talent.

Hosted by the diminutive dictator himself, the televised talent showcase has been heating up the Nielsens ever since it debuted, with approximately 100 percent of all North Korean TV viewers watching it.

"It helps that the marketing campaign has been so strong," says Davis Logsdon, who studies North Korean television trends at the University of Minnesota. "Also that Kim Jong Il has forced all North Koreans to watch it under penalty of death."

The North Korean talent show ignores such talents as singing, dancing and juggling in favor of talents that the North Korean dictator favors, such as reprocessing spent nuclear fuel rods.

Other talents showcased include goose-stepping, saber-rattling, and kidnapping innocent Japanese citizens.

North Korean viewers are encouraged to vote for their favorite contestants, a system that has had more than its share of glitches, according to Logsdon: "The biggest problem has been trying to teach the audience what 'voting' means."

While the West was apparently blindsided by Kim Jong Il's entry into the reality TV field, Logsdon says the move should not have been a surprise.

Elsewhere, in a budget-cutting move, the New York Times announced that it would trim its page size, changing its motto to "All the News That Fits."

[Last modified July 22, 2006, 20:11:45]