Support A Real Public Service

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This morning

After 10 years,, brilliant satirical news hub Waterford Whispers News (WWN) is starting a new fan subscription service.

To wit:

Creator Colm Williamson and his team of two writers are launching a fan-led subscription service to help WWN survive and thrive in the face of legal threats, restrictions imposed by social media giants and the realities of shrinking online advertising revenue for all publishers.

The fan-led subscription service is launching on Monday, November 4 and will cost just €5 per month. Those signing up to support WWN will gain access to bonus content aplenty while keeping the site itself free and accessible to all.

Satire fans and all-round comedy junkies can access behind the scenes bonus content from WWN, personality-driven interviews, exclusive offers and discounts, along with exciting projects planned for the near future.

Colm Williamson writes:

“We’re joining the likes of Blindboy Boatclub, Second Captains and An Irishman Abroad among others, and looking to our fans who enjoy and value our work to help provide the best foundation for keeping the WWN train on the tracks.

After a lot of research and deliberation, we see this model as the best way to ensure WWN can continue its journey and produce satire that continues to make headlines and enemies around the world.

“Some of the legal threats we’ve received were designed to shut us up and ruin us financially. We’ve received the odd death threat or ten. The restrictions and suppression of some of our work by big online platforms has been chilling and doesn’t bode well for the future of satire and artistic expression online.”

“It puts us in a precarious position, but with support from our loyal readers, who have always been such huge megaphones for WWN, we’re looking to afford ourselves the freedom to challenge, offend and call out eejits in power as well as make the odd fart joke along the way.”

Colm added:

“No, this announcement isn’t Fake f**king News”.

WWN’s fan subscription here

Waterford Whispers News

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16 thoughts on “Support A Real Public Service

  1. Cian

    Waterford Whispers News is in trouble because they are being edged out of the news market by all the real news that should be satire – but is actually real.
    Pretty much anything to do with Trump or Brexit would have seemed like satire 5 years ago :-(

        1. Janet, I ate my avatar

          A BIT
          it’s designed as a poo show to entertain and distract from the fact that business runs/ drives most countries not the needs or interests of the people

          1. :-Joe

            +100%… A lot of it is by design for power and control… Create or encourage chaos then use it to take even more advantage over each and every situation..

            :-J

  2. class wario

    If I’m being honest, I think they peaked 5-6 years ago at this point. Some good stuff on occasion still but often try to juggle too many ‘issues’ or end up labouring the point a bit too much. So probably won’t be subscribing but not a totally surprising move either.

    For my money, the best satire out atm is The Hard Times although I may be biased in that their music satire also appeals to me a lot whereas it may be a bit ‘niche’ for general consumption.

    1. dhod

      check out The Betoota advocate. It’s Aussie so some of the local political stuff doesn’t work with an Irish audience. Aside from that they’re brilliant

  3. Spaghetti Hoop

    It’s so funny. But I honestly thought this was someone’s part-time project, and not a full-time unpaid job.

  4. jockey

    I feel like €1.99 with slow increases up to 5€ would have been a better approach. I’m not saying they’re not worth it, but their fanbase are mostly left wingers who love to feel like they’re underpaying for something great.

  5. :-Joe

    I hate to promote a truly corrosive corporate monopoly but the youtube advertising / echo-chamber brainwashing model is the only game in town at the moment for independent content creators in surviving from advertising revenue.

    Take your content to another level via video and add Patreon or others to your site as additional streams of income from subscriptions and donations. 5e per month is not a lot but when you consider netflix is the same price a lot people will automatically see a disparity in their head in terms of the financial incentive, however false or misguided it may be.

    Ideally, yourself and the other content creators you mentioned should create your own platform with your own advertising model. For example, .advertise only ethical and respectable local irish businesses at a discount and partner with others like the “guaranteed Irish” model and then duplicate the content accross other more widespread ubiquitous corporate media platforms.

    I hope you figure something out that keeps you going but I think your going to have to grow, expand and offer more in some way to keep people interested and gain more following.

    I personally think there needs to be a whole media system created to replace the state broadcast apparatus like Broadsheet should replce the Irish Times you would have podcasts and independent driven content replacing RTE news and entertainment programming.

    IMHO.. Maybe I’m stating the obvious or pointing towards the past?..

    :-J

  6. Lilly

    I’m not a fan of subscriptions. I like the Guardian model where you give a donation whenever you’re feeling flush, or feel you owe them a few quid, or when you’ve read something you liked and want to say thanks.

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