Couch Slave Entertainment

Couch Slave Entertainment is a Flarlandian entertainment company founded by merman scriptwriter Khyber Waterman in 1989. The company produces crude and "underrated" entertainment in the form of radio and television programming. Currently they work mainly for Channel 14 and UW Radio Active and has stopped working with the FBC after said corporation faced a crisis in 2016. Beforehand, it operated Channel A before it shut down in 2013 due to numerous uncertainties, including a lack of license to operate.
The company is described as "an important force in merculture", as Khyber and other famous Flarlandian merpeople work or have worked for Couch Slave, especially when it shifted to television animation in the second half of the 90s.
Currently Couch Slave is going past turbulent times, and it's unknown if the company will cease trading for good. If such situation happens, Khyber will own the entirety of the CSE archives.
==History==
Couch Slave Entertainment was founded by 6-year old Khyber Waterman in September 1989. He created the corporation as means of revenge for the shutdown of Voice of North Wembley, a local radio station which started as a pirate station before switching to a legal format.
At the same time, Couch Slave branched out into television by creating their first television series, Club X, for Channel Ten. Viewership figures were extremely limited, even for a channel tbat had started mational broadcasts: the first episode was viewed by an estimated 5000 viewers and the second by about 3500. For an underground television series, it was more of a false start, as the kind of channel Couch Slave would be associated to had not existed at the time - except for local, low-budget television channels where the show was exported to, in areas wothout any Channel Ten signal.
Couch Slave started publishing underground comics a few months later. They eventually were published in the Couch Slave Magazine, which had a circulation of 100 copies at launch. Even aat the time, Coich Slave and Khyber Waterman were largely unheard of.
Viewing figures for Club X began to increase, as the show spread by word of mouth. By the summer of 1990, an estimated 10.000 viewers were watching Club X - far away from the millions of viewers Couch Slave shows would get by the end of the decade. The success of Club X was too much for Channel Ten that they decided tk cancel their contract with Couch Slave and proxeeded to contonue to FBC 3, who had a quick nationwide roll-out. Club X now had about 100.000 viewers and the budget to produce more content increased. Another deal with Channel 14 was made, mainly to create new programs.
1993 saw Khyber and Couch Slave's debut on the radio. His first show was Radio 3's Dusk Zone, broadcast at 7pm every evening, although the program was being challenged by competition from television. In the following year, Couch Slave entered the music industry by signing a deal with Zipstyke, a Flarlandian eurectidisco label. Zipstyke also had a show on Channel 14.
In 1996, Couch Slave produced its most successful show to date, before switching to animation: Friday Night Khyber, an underground talkshow hosted by Khyber Waterman. The surreal style of the program managed it to get high viewing figures for a youth channel. In 1997, Couch Slave decided to drift from live-action television production and move into television animation and comics, by teaming up with the popular Requiem of Whirlplash website, which by the end of the year was under Couch Slave control.
In 1998, Khyber's TV Show debuted on Channel 14. It lasted for a season of twenty episodes and featured new content.
In 2001, Couch Slave merged with Exceeda in order to form a larger production company, Exceeda Couch Slave. Couch Slave Entertainment continued as a separate brand within the merged company, it also started running two television channels from Exceeda: Channel A and Flick. The merger with Exceeda didn't work. In 2003, Exceeda split from the joint-venture and was later declared bankrupt. Couch Slave's solution was to manage Exceeda's channels alone, as well as the company's programs and websites. Couch Slave ran the channel until its shutdown in 2013, there was a grassroots movement to keep the channel alive and resume operations, but failed.
As a side effect of the split, Couch Slave Entertainment became responsible for the total management of the channels Exceeda operated, and changed the formula slightly.
Khyber: The Animated Series premiered in 2013, first on the FBC before changing hands to Channel 14.
In December 2019, Khyber announced in private that he would resign, effective midnight on January 1, 2020 when it was announced in public.
On March 30, 2022, Khyber returned for a one-off outing at Couch Slave to deliver a speech about the future of the company. In the speech he said that "the current socio-political and socio-economical situations of the current world have made some of our works hard to continue being relevant, at least for now. If the world doesn't act and learn from the past, then we will be condemned".
Since Khyber was involved in the creation of CSE, he will decide the faate of the company and its libraries.
The speech was seen with some controversy. Since 2020, due to a number of factors (including the resignation of Khyber Waterman, as well as divergences with social media values), CSE's employees were reduced somewhat. Before Khyber's resignation, the company employed about 600 people. Currently the staff is limited to between 100 and 150, with most people having changed jobs and, in Khyber's words, "were converted to values that don't employ with CSE". International sales were also halted due to the difficult decision the company is facing.
Currently CSE is producing Khyber: The Animated Series, Bannings and two programs for UW Radio Active.
Since at least February 2021, CSE annoucned plans to shut down its operations at the long-term.
Speaking for the Place is Back event held on July 7, 2022:
"Today's world is heavily reactive and people are hypocrites. With the rise in hypocrisy, we want to wind up fast. But I still have contractual obligations for Khyber: The Animated Series, about to enter its eighth season and no seeming end in sight for it. Maybe there will be something great when I turn 40. I know that I am no longer the Khyber I was in my golden days, and Couch Slave without me as president is a sign that we can't stay afloat for longer."
Khyber Waterman also thinks that the "no future" slogans CSE had since at least 2014 have sadly "come true" due to "a rise in selfish movements". According to Khyber, people from those movements "have less tendency to consume content from the CSE staple and follow the herds of larger content creators".
The company has lost a significant number of followers and workers since 2017, posing the question of when, not if, Couch Slave Entertainment will be shut down.
On October 11, 2022, Couch Slave announced that it was going to proceed to lay off about 40% of its employees.
==Work==
===Radio===
*The Life of Khyber (2004-2009, 2016-present)
*How and Why (2006-2007)
===Television===
*Club X (1989-1995)
*The Unauthorized History of Flarland (2000-2002)
*K-Zone Direct Connection (2002-2009)
*Team KRA (2003-2006)
*Nobody's Imagination (2004-2008)
*Virtual Khyber (2012-2013)
*Khyber: The Animated Series (2013-present)
*Sam, Amber and Darwin (2017-2019)
*The Friends He Never Knew (2018-present)
*Bannings (2019-present)
===Film===
*Khyber: The Animated Film (2018)
==Slogans==
*There Is No Future
*these days are enough
==Operations==
===Current===
As of 2022, Couch Slave only has two offices, head offices in Wembley and regional offices in Waverly Hills. The Wembley head offices also include an animation facility owned partially by Couch Slave (as they bought Studio Warley in 2007, now George Wendell bought it) and recording studios. Until 2016, the building had TV studios, but they were decommissioned after the petitions to return Channel A to the air were proven "fruitless".
During the Alavo-Ugrainian war, the dubbing studio added Ukrainian and Russian, granted the dubs aren't voice-over translations. A few shows are being dubbed.
==Key people==
*Khyber Waterman
*Ajakoo Johnson-Roberts (also works with separate company Intense)