『76, 75, 74』 the numbers counted down, displayed on several screens in front of them in the monitoring room. The prime viewing hour was about to begin. Just coming off the biggest zoneball match of the year, families were settling down around the world for a relaxing night of TV—viewership at an all time high.
They were probably expecting to watch their favorite sitcoms or animated series, maybe some news before going to bed, but not this night. Apologies everyone, but your programming will be taking a backseat for a while, Chorus smirked to themself as they stood behind the rest of the group, watching eagerly as everyone scrambled at their stations.
Anyone who was decent with tech was present, ready to do what they could for any issues that arose. Their broadcasting system was mostly automated, but they knew there’d be pushback that only physical input could overcome. The hardware they’d confiscated from Bovination was exceedingly useful in building their infrastructure, and now everything was set up to hijack every channel.
“Let’s make them pay for not giving us what we want,” Chorus spouted to the rest of the room, but really it was motivation just for themself. They had tried to do this all legally and by the book, requesting an official broadcast channel for the Fiends For Hire. Of course, it was rejected. Submitted again, rejected again. Appealed, rejected. Appealed to a higher authority, rejected again, and banned from submitting any further inquiries.
So the powers at be left them no choice but to resort to more crime, something Chorus didn’t mind in the slightest. They had a stopwatch ready, wanting to see how fast they could speedrun getting the Central Peace to bend to their whims. If the governing body had just given in and rightfully allowed them to have their own channel to begin with, then this could have all been avoided.
The film they were about to play wasn’t one that Chorus would have ever picked for their debut broadcast, but it would be the most effective. What better way to get the CP to buckle quickly than to publicly humiliate them.
First on the slate was a biopic of Sim Twelling, a Fiend with severe mental health issues that was manipulated by the Central Peace for their own ends—a tragic story that led to his death. That was their take on the events anyways, though it was not far from the truth. No matter what lens it was put under, the fact that Sim Twelling was a victim could not be ignored.
This way, what remained of the Twelling family could get closure for their relative’s death, and the CP couldn’t hide the truth any longer. The film, of course, also portrayed the Fiends For Hire as the heroes, but also as manipulated victims as well. In the end, they play the Central Peace for fools, that part perfectly mimicking real life.
While none of this had been properly recorded at the time, Chorus had been able to track down some bodycam footage of CP soldiers during the event for that real, undeniable historical accuracy. The rest had been done through reenactments. Chorus was able to get the the Fiends For Hire members to somewhat recreate it in their battle simulator, while the rest of the parts were filled by actors through Chorus connections—either excited to get in on this project, or those that struggled to find work in it for a hefty paycheck.
Regardless, this film was about to blow some minds and open a lot of eyes. A lot of work had been put into it, so regardless of anyone's political inclinations, it should still be an interesting viewing experience for everyone watching.
For this cut at least, Chorus made sure to remove the most gory and violent bits. Those could be seen in the unedited version that would be available online. While it would only serve to humiliate the CP further if they were broadcast, it was a bit early to scar some children who would be watching too.
“And we’re live!” Victori called from her station. She was in charge of monitoring the world’s reaction and keeping an eye out for any rumors of retaliation.
“Six channels have cut their feed. Forcing reboot,” Feyj announced after about a minute had passed. Six was honestly lower than Chorus had expected. They had estimated at least a dozen would take that action. It seemed more networks than anticipated were letting it ride out.
“Four networks are attempting to override with their own feeds. Loading firewalls to hold them back,” Mallea was in charge of keeping those that attempted to fight back at bay.
Roque came over from his corner, his hand over the mic of his phone to keep the recipient from hearing. “The music network is reporting threats from the CP to kill our broadcast.”
“Hmph, as we predicted,” Chorus grinned. “Reassure them and offer to pay any fines they may incur. And remind them that the CP can’t actually do anything beyond that.” They had reached out to a few big networks ahead of time to try and get their cooperation and allow them to have genuine permission to broadcast on their networks for an impressive sum. Several had taken the offer, but a few turned them down, so now they received nothing while having their channels hijacked anyways.
“I’ve been pushed out of Prosper City News three times already,” Nathym reported. “Even with rewriting the algorithm each time, they’re on top of it. They definitely have a team dedicated to stopping us.”
“That’s fine, let it go,” Chorus ordered. “Let Gedring talk about us all she wants. It will only serve our cause further.” As expected, someone who’d turned down their deal had forewarned the CP. And of course they were going to use all of their resources to defend their prime asset.
“We got it!” Victori shouted in excitement. “The new channel is live on the promise that we stop broadcasting the film within the next few minutes for any channel that didn’t preauthorize it.”
Chorus clicked their stopwatch—just over 16 minutes—and quickly darted over to her station to read the email sent by the Minister of Communications. “Alright everyone, we’re now switching to compliance mode. Kill the main feed and load the message. Keep it up on each network for as long as you can.”
For those networks that hadn’t given them permission, the movie ended just as things were really getting interesting. It was replaced with a black screen with just a few words in plain white text. 『The Central Peace doesn’t want you to see the rest of the movie. If you want to see how it ends, tune into your brand new channel: Fiend TV』
For the services that could support it, they included a prompt that would take them directly to their own channel if accepted. On those channels that had given them permission, there was now a banner at the bottom with a similar prompt to change the channel. 『Broadcast provided by Fiend TV. Check out the channel to see more!』
Chorus spent the next hour glued to the screen with the counter for Fiend TV viewers, giggling to themself as it continued to climb. Even when the movie was over, the number only skyrocketed. Now they were in store for the full lineup of Fiends For Hire programming that would air constantly and unendingly.
They didn’t have enough content to broadcast new shows every hour of the day, but they were damn near close. Reruns were inevitable, but carefully placed, so that everyone who could see the content would be able to at a time that was convenient to them.
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Additionally, the Fiends For Hire website had a new tab added dedicated solely to Fiend TV. It showed the live broadcast for free while also listing a breakdown of the schedule to come. There was also a full back catalog of everything that had already aired, along with a few shows that already had full seasons ready to be watched on demand.
Chorus nearly fainted at the instant success. It was a glorious start, but just how far could they push it.
◆◆◆
After one month of broadcasting, it was time for Chorus to report on the progress of Fiend TV. They were holding the meeting in the movie theater beneath the general’s mansion, which had become a popular spot for watch parties of their series debuts. Chorus had said they wanted as many members as possible to attend the meeting, but it was unclear the reason why. Perhaps they had some more test-clips to show and wanted a big crowd for feedback, or just wanted to boast about their success to as many ears as possible.
“These are insane numbers!” Chorus couldn’t contain themself. “84% of the world’s population have at least looked at the channel or visited the section of the website since launch. 61% have watched at least one full program per week. 37% are watching multiple programs on multiple days. And 14% are just leaving it on the entire time their TVs or computers are on. Needless to say, we’re a hit!”
Chorus then broke down the success of each show. Most did pretty well, but there were a few lagging behind. Three had been pulled entirely, two of which would be reworked based on feedback, but one was canceled—dead and buried. It seemed there wasn’t a big enough market for Nathym’s show about futuristic tech builds, the science going over almost everyone’s heads, including the presenter at times. So it was gone for good, or at least until the general public became a bit more tech savvy.
Cooking with Mallea had been one of those pulled to be retooled along the same lines. Her technique and proficiency with cooking made it just too difficult for the standard viewer to follow along. However, the recipes themselves were quite popular, which showed there was a market. It just needed to be presented in a new way.
The idea for the revamp was that a layman would do the cooking while Mallea guided them along the way and scolded them for comedic effect when they messed up. They just needed to find the best terrible-cook willing to act the fool. Chorus’ first choices of Itsy and Niloy had sadly turned down the offer. A shame, because they would have been great crowd pleasers in that regard.
Both Crucion and Gatrim had volunteered, but Chorus was hesitant to use either of them. Crucion was sadly too much of a simple guy, and viewers probably wouldn’t find him engaging enough, except for maybe his charming clumsiness. Gatrim would have the ‘humbling a noble’ perk to them, but Chorus suspected that he only volunteered because he wanted to try and prove his superiority at something new—defeating the purpose of the show.
Unless some other grand star presented itself, they’d probably force Victori to take the role. She had the same humbling aspect, but with the benefit of being a cute girl—when she tried at least. Plus, she did genuinely put in a lot of effort for every task she was given, and Chorus doubted this would be any different.
Besides those limited failures, everything had been a success. One other hiccup, though, was an action movie they put out with several fights between Fiends. Really, they were just mock training battles that had been secretly recorded with some special effects added and a loose plot to tie them together.
The complaints weren’t about the content itself, just that they were too similar to modern superhero movies. This Chorus had to agree with, and they’d invest more time into the writing in the future. Really, they’d just wanted to play it safe—appealing to the mass market and then diverge more into their own unique thing. Since they didn’t need to meet returns on investment, they could get as weird with it as they wanted as long as people kept watching.
Kada had been an absolute star. The animated ‘Lokka the Brave Quokka’ series had been an unbridled hit with children and adults alike. Because of its success, they were looking into what other animated series they could create. It had gotten to the point that they received constant requests for more than one episode a week. That would have been fine on the animation side, since they could hire more staff. But while Kada wasn’t the main writer for the show, she was the primary consultant, and couldn’t make enough time to meet with them more than she already was.
Her other show, however, she had plenty of time for and often begged Chorus to let her shoot more episodes—even though they already had hundreds stockpiled. It was called ‘Will It Melt?’ and was the flagship show for their online only catalog. Each episode didn’t have a specific length and had a lot less production than any actual TV show.
The point of the show was for Kada to try her Curse on various objects to answer the question ‘Will it Melt?’ The answer was always yes assuming it wasn’t a living creature, but the way that everything melted was what people found interesting. Perhaps it was the purposefully low budget or just how dumb the concept was, but it really resonated with the teenage crowd.
There were plenty of others, but Chorus skimmed through most of it, only drawing attention if there were upcoming changes to a show. They had a point in particular they wanted to make, so they needed to get to their top two performing shows.
“I’m sure this will surprise everyone, but our second most watched show is ‘Your Beautiful Self’, Niloy’s makeup show.” Chorus announced. It was a simple show where Niloy, along with a guest, tried on some makeup while chatting about random things.
“In particular, Jaid’s episode actually is our most watched single episode of any series. They find the rumors of her being a spy very compelling and want to know more. That’s why you should let me run that documentary series about her time here. It’s already—”
“I’ve told you a hundred times, Chorus,” Drim interjected. “If you can get her permission, then you can release it.”
The count was actually closer to two hundred by Chorus’ estimation, and they’d probably sent triple that amount of requests to Jaid herself. She’d eventually given in and signed the rights for the makeup show to try and get Chorus to leave her alone. It didn’t work of course, but they’d gotten more creative with their soliciting. Today she was going to receive a full-size chocolate Pox holding a sign that said ‘Please!!!’.
Ultimately, though, it probably wasn’t up to her. It involved secrets of the CP that she most likely didn’t have the authorization to share. Which is why Chorus was now spamming General Breach, highest authority of the CP private military, with requests directly. One of them would break eventually, and Chorus may have started a betting pool.
Regardless, they hadn’t actually expected Drim to approve their request. That was certainly the worst part of their boss. He was the most stubborn and immovable person they’d ever met. Yet his public perception was an aloof boy who didn’t think too deeply about anything. Such a brilliant actor—fooling everyone around him.
“And of course, our most popular series is our cornerstone show: ‘Fiends’.” It was a daily-life show that followed the escapades of the Fiends For Hire. Each episode was a real job that one of the members went on with one of Chorus’ orbs following them around. Some were basic jobs like personal assistance or deliveries, others were dangerous monster hunts or deadly assaults on raider hideouts.
Everything too gory or sensitive was blurred out of course. While the show did have a suggested age rating, it was so popular that they had to assume people of every age were watching.
“This just goes to prove that what viewers really want is a glimpse into our real lives, more than the best produced shows we could ever make. They find us fascinating, not just as Fiends, as entertainers, as specimens, but as people. To them, we’re celebrities, and they want every bit of juicy gossip they can get.”
“Which is why…” Chorus rolled back their sleeve and checked their watch. They were a few seconds ahead of schedule and waited for their watch to get to exactly one minute til the hour before they resumed speaking. “Which is why, in the interest of stirring up more drama… err… I mean, generating more chances for engaging content… I’ve invited all of your parents!”
Everyone’s eyes lurched around the room, but Chorus continued before anyone could raise an objection.
“Well for those I could anyways. Some of you don’t have parents anymore for a multitude of reasons. In those cases, and in the cases where the parents didn’t respond, I invited the next of kin, or whoever would know you best. The first of them should be arriving exactly right now. Don’t keep them waiting, and do your best to provide me some juicy moments. Happy parents day!”
Chorus then threw a smoke bomb down and bolted out of the room with haste.