Live (make that “posthumously”), from Baghdad (make that “Europe”, or more likely “location undetermined”), it’s the Saddam Channel, satellite-beaming into Iraq:

The Saddam Channel debuted on Friday, the first day of this year’s Eid for Sunnis. The holiday started Saturday for Shiites. The station’s official name alternates between “Al-Lafeta” (“the banner”) and “Al-Arabi” (“the Arab”).

It is mostly a montage of flattering, still images of Saddam – some of him dressed in military uniform, others in a suit, even one astride a white horse. One image shows his sons Odai and Qusai smiling with their father, and another their bodies after they and Saddam’s grandson, Mustafa, were killed in a July 2003 gunfight with U.S. troops…

All the pictures are set against audio recordings of Saddam making speeches and reciting poetry. Patriotic songs urge listeners to “liberate our country.” None of the pictures appear to be recent, and no announcers or commentators appear or speak.

The motive appears to be to influence the upcoming national parliamentary elections. If so, it’s hamhanded propaganda on the cheap. I’m guessing the all-Saddam all-the-time audiovisual is intended to conjure up the “good old days” of Hussein’s dictatorship, along with whatever martyrdom he now holds among segment of Iraqi society. But without some original commentary to drive home that concept, the old photos and recordings amount to soft messaging, and less chance at any measurable electoral/political result. For all this lack of production values, the mystery backers might as well have tossed this up online — except, of course, that even a boring TV feed like this still has more reach and impact than an even more anonymous website.

Can’t wait to see what becomes of Saddam TV after the election-time blitz blows over. If it’s anything like the typical American single-purpose cable channel, it’ll soon abandon the one-note format in an attempt at broadening the audience (and attracting more advertisers, natch). Think in terms of MTV no longer playing its signature music videos — along with about a jillion other cable TV examples. So Iraqi tube-watchers can look forward to The Saddam Channel morphing into TSC, with a slate of reality shows, classic made-for-TV movies, and maybe a half-hour of Saddam retrospectives per day…