By South East Asia correspondent Karen Percy for AMPosted Tue Nov 17, 2009
Seinfeld was the long-running American TV show about nothing, and television producers in Thailand seem to have a cult-hit on their hands with something quite similar.
This black and white reality show features three four-legged stars who really do very little but that doesn't seem to matter.
Lin Ping is barely six months old. As you would expect, her mother is watching her every move.
And so too are tens of thousands of Thai television fans who are glued to the Panda Channel and its 24-hour coverage of their favourite little girl.
Young fans are mesmerised. When one little boy's mother suggests changing the channel she is given a firm 'no'.
"No, I want to watch," he says. "The panda will wake up soon."
The channel was started by the cable and communications firm, True Corporation, at the beginning of this month.
True Corporation's Rungfa Kiatipoj says they have been taken by surprise by the popularity of the network, which features Lin Ping, her mother, Lin Hui, and her dad, Shung Shung.
"Right now Lin Ping and her mother stay together," he said.
[It's a] very wonderful thing, like a human being, between baby and mother. They live together, they feed together.
"It seems like human beings for me because I keep looking and I said, 'wow [I am] so surprised and right now' [it] is very popular among kids, mother, family, especially like grandmother. I don't know why."
Following the action
A couple of cameras have been set up in the zoo enclosure at the Chiang Mai zoo in Thailand's north.
The cameras are controlled by a small team at the zoo.
They follow the action. This is, of course, when Lin Ping and family are not sleeping. Pandas sleep a lot.
The signal is relayed to Bangkok where it is sent out via cable, satellite and the internet.
Mr Rungfa says viewers get to follow the young panda as she grows.
"Everything is so cute. It is like a human being that they grow up day by day and you know even a baby that keeps sleep, sleep, sleep," he said.
"[The] panda baby also [does] the same thing," he said.
Every day the network plays a 30-minute highlights package where the mother and daughter are seen rolling over and scratching themselves, occasionally play wrestling.
In quiet times the camera switches to see what dad is up to.
The idea for the panda channel was spawned by another hugely successful reality channel, Academy Fantasia, Thailand's answer to Big Brother and American Idol, which is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
True Corporation discovered that some viewers would stay up to watch the wanna-be music stars - even as they slept.
Now, beyond the world of rock and roll, Mr Rungfa says the company has another hit on its hands.
"They [are] so in love with this panda channel because this is the lovely pet that, you know, every time when you watch, it is like, [giving] you something," he said.
Panda TV even has an unlikely fan base among Thailand's legion of expatriates who have discovered there is such thing as quiet time in the bustle of Bangkok.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/17/2744806.htm
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