(2009 - 2010)

The media is a hungry beast – it devours everything and is never satisfied. Now, 19 newcomers to television – recruited after a nationwide call for young talent - are being given the opportunity by the ABC to feed the beast.

Each week, they will produce a half-hour of topical TV, as well as daily web content, bringing viewers news from outside the loop. This means they are being asked to find stories that aren’t part of the regular news cycle – or to cover stories that are, from a fresh angle. They have been given one editorial instruction: “tell us something we don’t know”. Beyond that they are being encouraged to use every skill they have – humour, curiosity, passion, bullshit-detection and good old-fashioned snooping around - to bring us the world as they see it, re-mixed.

The HUNGRY BEAST website will feature new original stories from the HUNGRY BEAST team each day. HUNGRY BEAST on the web will also be a community where the audience can contribute stories to the website, and potentially have them broadcast on the TV program.

HUNGRY BEAST Executive Producer Andrew Denton ( The Election Chaser, CNNNN, Enough Rope, :30 Seconds, The Gruen Transfer) says, “This is both an amazing opportunity and challenge for these guys. Opportunity, in that they are being granted the resources and space to take risks, ask great questions and show us a different way of looking at the world. And challenge in that they are starting with a blank page – creatively, nothing is scarier – and that they will be growing up in public.

“The rewards, we hope, will be many – not for us, but for the audience. What ABC TV has embraced here is something it has done to the viewers’ benefit many times before – think This Day Tonight, Beatbox, Race Around The World, Fly TV and The Chaser – it has thrown open the doors to new talent and given them a serious shot at learning the ropes and making their mark. While we all want HUNGRY BEAST to become an audience favourite, our deeper hope is that, regardless of the show’s success, many in the team will go on to contribute great ideas to Australian television for years to come.”

Having screened 2 series on ABC, Hungry Beast is currently off air, but you can still view the online content at the official website here.