ALT TV
ALT TV · National LibraryNational Library record: ALT TV aired nationally during 2006–2009.
Media · Auckland · c. 2007–2009
ALT TV and ALT After Dark
I met ALT TV presenter Jack during my brief stint at Compass Communications. That chance connection turned into producing the station’s late Friday- and Saturday-night shows, rebranding the block as ALT After Dark, and eventually pushing the format beyond the studio itself.
References & historical context
External references are provided for chronology and context. They do not imply endorsement, employment verification or a commercial relationship beyond what the chapter itself describes.
Shelley Meecham · The Almighty Johnsons · 2011
Meeting Shelley Meecham
Vodka Girl #1
This episode starts at 2:28, where Shelley appears as Vodka Girl #1.
Probably mid-2008 · most likely May–August 2008
The Most Memorable Friday Night at ALT TV.
I was always looking for something edgy for the show. This particular Friday night I had booked a stripper.
During the week I'd gone looking for something genuinely edgy for between music videos. We were already running brutal skate footage, broken bones, massive crashes, high-impact clips, anything that made you stop and stare.
Then I thought: why don't I put a stripper on live New Zealand television?
I found a girl named Shelley Meecham through her company, Go Wild. Her website looked professional. She looked absolutely stunning so I called her. I explained what I wanted to do, and she agreed to perform for free as long as I put her company banner behind her in view of the camera.
DONE!
Our show started at 10pm.
Normally by the time we arrived, everybody from the ALT TV offices had already disappeared for the night.
Not this Friday.
People were awkwardly hanging around much later than usual.
As Thane Kirby and Ricky were finally leaving, obviously unable to wait any longer Thane came over.
“I hear you're getting a stripper in tonight. What if she's a junkie whore?” he asked.
Shit.
I hadn't even considered that.
“I just won't let her on.”
He sneered and they headed downstairs and out the building to begin their weekend.
Suddenly I'm standing there thinking: SHIT! What have I done?
Then Shelley arrives.
Every concern disappears INSTANTLY!
She was fucking spectacular.
Beautiful, confident, immaculate, completely self-assured. She didn't walk into ALT TV looking nervous about appearing on television at all.
She walked in like she totally owned the building.
“Help me get my banner up.”
Straight to business.
I help bring her large company banner up from her Subaru and then she pulls me into an private office area, looking to get changed.
My girlfriend, sensing imminent danger, suddenly became surgically attached to my side.
Shelley looked at me.
“Which outfit do you want? Schoolgirl or nurse?”
There was only one correct answer in my head, which was precisely why I wasn't going to say it.
“Whichever you prefer.”
That was my safe answer, of course.
Within seconds she was changing into this cute red pleated tartan skirt, not ridicuolously short like the cheap one, a tight white blouse and white knee-high socks while I discovered several fascinating new places on the office wall to stare at.
My girlfriend was becoming progressively more obviously threatened, Interesting, I had never actually seen her feeling jealous before this moment.
Shelley couldn't have cared less. She immediately removes her top, bra less, and removes her pants in an instant then steps into her school girl get up with practised ease.
There was a show to do.
“Come on. Let's get this banner up.”
I told her I'd get one of the crew to do it.
“No way. Nobody touches this banner except me. It cost me a fortune.”
She grabbs the ladder herself, carries it into the studio and positions it exactly where she wants it.
“Hold the ladder.” She demands.
Yes Ma'am!
So now I'm holding a ladder while Shelley Meecham, wearing a schoolgirl skirt, climbs directly above my head.
There are moments in a man's life where there is simply no correct direction to look.
Behind me the boys were giggling at my unanticapted self induced plight.
Shelley put the banner up perfectly, came back down and carried on as if nothing remotely unusual had happened.
This was Shelley Meecham. Mere words do not do her or this moment justice.
She had been in the building for minutes and already controlled the show, the building, the entire city of Auckland.
Then we went live.
We'd decided to open the show with almost nothing.
An empty studio.
One chair in the middle of the floor.
And sitting on it, completely alone in shot, was Jordan.
Jordan also happened to be a Vodafone brand ambassador at the time, which, for anyone who has ever worked in advertising, marketing or corporate communications, makes what happened next considerably more hillarious.
Guns N' Roses starts playing, Sweet Child 'O Mine from memory.
Shelley walked into frame.
Straight towards Jordan.
She plants her hands on the floor and launches into a spectacular walk-over, legs sweeping over Jordan's head with complete control.
And she landa it PERFECTLY!
Dead centre.
She lands directly over the face of a Vodafone brand ambassador on live national television, skirt up round her waist, and immediately started thrusting her hips to the music.
Jordan just sat there.
There was no cutaway. We were all just STUNNED!
A otherwise empty television studio, a chair, Jordan, and Shelley Meecham essentially fucking his face on live New Zealand Television.
For anyone watching who knew who Jordan was or understood how seriously major brands treated their ambassadors, the situation was absolutely insane.
I was dying.
And Shelley?
Totally composed.
From the second she walked through ALT TV's doors to that completely outrageous moment on live television, she had been confident, precise and completely in command.
Shelley Meecham was fucking perfect.
Years later I discovered her again in a rather more conventional piece of New Zealand television.
Shelley Meecham – “Vodka Girl #1”, The Almighty Johnsons, Season 1 Episode 1 (2011).
The wider ALT TV / George FM lineage.
ALT TV was created by Thane Kirby and Ricky Newby. Kirby was also one of the founders of George FM ↗, which placed ALT TV inside the same Auckland alternative and electronic-music culture I had already been drawn towards for years.
National Library record for ALT TV ↗
A format I wanted to push further
I wanted to televise a live dance party.
At some point during ALT After Dark I had what seemed to me like an obvious idea: instead of only showing music television from the studio, why not take the station into a real nightclub and broadcast a dance party live?
Thane Kirby hated the idea.
“No one wants to tune in and watch you and your mates having a party.”
So I got essentially no support for it from the top.
I still wanted to do it.
Terry Mathers helped me make it happen anyway.
Terry Mathers, one of the senior producers at the station, understood what I was trying to do and helped me solve the technical problem. Terry deserves the recognition here because without his practical help that broadcast probably would not have happened.
Through one of his industry connections he managed to source an extremely long CAT5 cable.
Then came the ridiculous part.
With a dodgy ladder and Terry helping me, I climbed across a series of equally dodgy rooftops along K Road in Auckland, running that cable from the ALT TV station down the road and into a nightclub that had agreed to let me stage the party there that night.
It was one hell of a day.
We got the connection into the club. We got the party running. We got the DJs playing.
And we broadcast it live.
The thing I had been told nobody would want to watch actually went to air.
It was live DJs, a real party and a television feed coming out of the venue rather than a conventional studio setup.
Years later, live DJ sets and party streams would become completely normal on the internet. At the time, I was simply trying to make television feel more like the culture it was supposed to represent.
The Red Vs Blue chapter also overlaps this period. The same young audience who were filling that gaming centre could sometimes see me appear on ALT TV, and the worlds of online community, gaming, music television and nightlife were starting to blur together.
A name that returned later
“After Dark” followed me back to radio.
Years later, when I took over Friday and Saturday late nights on PulzarFM in Christchurch, I used After Dark again as a nod to the ALT TV period.