Malaysian couch potatoes can’t have enough of preening, marauding and muckraking MPs, Assemblymen and Senators that they need to savour and drool over their favourite elected representatives through TV, all live, all the time – a 24/7 slaphappy feast of socio-political and economic speechifying, mindless arguments, cat calls, lurid name-calling and the routine self-flagellations echoed and blared in the living rooms of the politically indoctrinated and reality TV-starved locals.

The idiot box would have truly found its spiritual home in the minds of media savvy Malaysians if Information Minister Datuk Ahmad Shabery Cheek really entertains the suggestion by Datuk Razali Ibrahim's (BN-Muar) at the Dewan Rakyat today to create a new TV channel for all parliamentary and state representatives.

If Parliament gets its own TV channel, it could be called “YB-TV” for a more familiar and snappy impact. It would be the ultimate Reality TV, the slick fusion between Akademi Fantasia, Malaysian Idol and Dewan Rakyat with our honourable MPs being the chief players instead of young delectable types desperately trying to get a crack at national stardom. It’s no longer enough for our MPs to hire press and political aides, now they got to enter Parliament with an attention-seeking entourage of image consultants, make-up artists, media planners and celebrity groupies.

We can imagine a slew of prominent MPs, both Government and Opposition, all starry-eyed types dragging the usual talking heads and minders who are there to help elevate their profiles and look more important than they really are, all because of the stature YB-TV could bring to them.

Soon speeches must have a commercial add-on – a certain Yang Berhormat who feels strongly about clogged drains in his home could team up with a cleansing detergent company, the MP arguing about the national car may also pitch a used car company and the elected rep with the unconscionable penchant for idiotic epithets could cook up endorsements for mouthwash.
But Ahmad Shabery, who may be the most savvy Information Minister ever to engage the alternative media and blogs, has demonstrated himself to be better than the half-wits who graced the national platform with his bold live TV debate with the radioactive charisma of Anwar Ibrahim. It didn’t matter to him who won or lost that groundbreaking broadcast initiative but it certainly pointed to a futuristic mold as to how the Government could engage the Opposition or any of its trenchant critics without breaking a sweat.

But being on TV does not have to be limited to the boob tube: the World Wide Web is screaming for somebody to push this idea whose time has come. YB-TV may get its traction on the web, perhaps ala YouTube, under the web address of www.ybtv.com.my with its own Internet TV and production crew. It would be a scream should this venture materialises.

But before you think of endorsements, commercials and megastar MPs, Ahmad Shabery looks to be scuppering the idea: he did expressed to Razali that the Information Ministry will consider whether there is a need to create a new channel, as one of RTM’s expansion programme to enhance the station's role in connecting the people with the country's institutions like Parliament. Ahmad Shabery even alluded that RTM would evaluate the pros and cons of direct broadcast by emulating stations in the United States and Brazil.

But that’s the extent of his enthusiasm for YB-TV. Ahmad Shabery blandly averred that in the US, a channel to air debates in the Senate or Congress seemed to be unpopular. "It doesn't show that the channel is popular if debates are fully aired from day to night," he contended. “The high rating of RTM’s Parliament live coverage now might be due to the short duration of the programme. At only for half an hour, many people are willing to spend time to watch it.”

Ahmad Shabery may have a point there. Where’s the fun of viewing the droning of dull, banal issues around-the-clock? The House meets from 10am and breaks for lunch at 1pm before resuming at 2.30pm, finishing the day’s business at 5.30pm, unless someone insists on dragging business until midnight to clear outstanding Bills while allowing every MP with an opinion and an attitude a chance to say their piece.

Even if there is the element of education, information and enlightenment for the masses that YB-TV can offer, the goodness derived from the House would be weighed down by sheer, unequivocal boredom. It won’t be long before the average viewer, other than the most rabid political party members, operatives, supplicants and minions, would channel surf to the more gratifying HBO, AXN, MTV or even the conservative programmes RTM routinely dishes out.

But that’s thinking conventionally about how YB-TV should operate. Ahmad Shabery should devise things in radical, unprecedented and unorthodox terms and behave like Simon Cowell. First, hire a bunch of genetically-gifted anchors with the show-stopping mien on how to engage and pin viewers long enough for them to catch a debate between a Minister like Shahrir Samad jousting with the Opposition heavyweights on spiking food prices vis-à-vis spiralling fuel prices. Think Afdlin Shauki, Ida Nerina, Patrick Teoh and Harris Iskander.

In between sessions, show a greatest hit of Hot 100 debates, create popularity contests like who are the most dashing MPs or the ones with the most alluring sex appeal. If that’s too MP lite, then come out with a MP for the Day, Week or Month, those reps who made the most useful or incendiary contribution to proceedings. In a different category, think fashion police and list out a veritable list of the best dressed MP as opposed to the worst ala Mr Blackwell’s list. For judges, look to Jimmy Choo, Bernard Chandran, Melinda Looi and Zang Toi.
All 222 MPs must be given equal time on air debating and giving out-of-the-House interviews. Insist on a quota of minutes per session so as to cap what Lim Kit Siang (DAP-Ipoh Timor) can say in a day or a week without being overwhelmingly domineering and prod an underwhelming performer/debater like Loh Gwo Burne (PKR-Kelana Jaya) to yak for more than five minutes in a whole session while providing demonstrations on the best camera/video phones or other kinds of electronic gadgets that can catch a blockhead bleating and bantering out of his mind.

On air, there will be a moving strap to indicate a ratings meter to quantitatively indicate the impact of MPs in the House: the number of minutes they debated, the number of questions raised and submitted, the times they interjected, the times they get rudely interrupted, the times they slingshot a loaded inquiry and the times they recovered with a devilish comeback after being pummelled to near-death. Any MP with the best statistics will be rewarded with extra talk-time minutes on air or an exclusive show at their respective backwater constituencies.

To make YB-TV more stimulating, get some backbenchers or Opposition functionary MPs to, for once, jump out of their seats like Usain Bolt and provoke the other side to a verbal skirmish that ends in jeers, boos and the usual putdowns instead of letting regulars like Tajuddin Rahman, Karpal Singh, Gobind Singh Deo and Bung Moktar Radin dominate proceedings with their off-coloured tirades.

Let’s check out an intimate altercation between Nurul Izzah Anwar (PKR) and Khairy Jamaludin (BN-Rembau) on the virtues of married life where the woman wears the pants in the family or a grisly face-off between Rafidah Aziz (BN-Kuala Kangsar) and the tag team of Teresa Kok (DAP-Seputeh) and Fong Po Kuan (DAP-Batu Gajah) on what kind of woman should wear the pants.

If Ahmad Shabery can promulgate any of these extravagantly out-of-the-box ideas into solid YB-TV offerings, you can bet on Nigella Lawson’s cupcakes that advertisers will flock to the channel with sweetheart commercial deals where a generous percentage will go the MPs, especially Opposition MPs in need of development funds to bolster their languishing and dilapidated constituencies.

Think in TV superstardom terms. Think catchy cataclysm. Think hardened national issues. Think MPs with sex appeal. Now that’s entertainment.