Westco Productions was established several years ago by Fred Mafrica as the production arm behind his new show, The Couch. Right from the start, The Couch was intended to give Perth audiences their own locally-produced talk/variety program, and we continue to this day to be the only such show.
The Couch promotes the people and talent of the Western Australian community. We provide everything one would expect from a chat show – music and movie reviews, celebrity interviews, charity promotions, cooking, entertainment news and plenty of live music and dancing.
Over the years, The Couch has also seen its own spin-off shows in the form of The Vault (no longer airing) and The Couch Factor (now integrated into the main program). Both of these were also produced by Fred and Westco.
Originally beginning in the cramped studio of Access 31’s original ECU headquarters, The Couch eventually moved to the Lotterywest Studio at Access 31’s Belmont location when construction was completed in 2004. However, we have occasionally left the confines of our studio. A few years ago a special edition of The Couch was broadcast live from the Perth Royal Show. And in 2007 we produced our two-hour 200th episode at Channel Nine Perth in front of a live audience.
Thanks to The Couch’s booming popularity, Fred has had the chance to meet some of the best-known faces in Australia, including Rove McManus, Andrew Denton, Hamish & Andy, Daryl Somers, John Wood, and the cast of the Today Show. Fred has made a bit of a profile for himself too, with regular appearances on Channel Seven’s Telethon and on radio.
For many years, The Couch went to air every single Sunday at 5.30pm on Access 31, Perth’s community TV station. Throughout 2007 and 2008, we also aired on C31 Adelaide, giving us our first taste of a wider audience.
In August 2008, we were hit by the abrupt closure of Access – but that only spurred us onto bigger and better things. A new home came in the form of Aurora Community Channel, available to Foxtel and Austar subscribers nationwide. We’re now fortunate enough to be producing the show from Ballajura Community College. Each week, we turn their spacious Performing Arts Centre into a fully functional TV studio, ready to deliver quality local content to a national audience.
The show has continued to grow and evolve in a lot of ways over the years, but there is one thing that has never and will never change – we are local people, still doing local television. Oh, and we definitely are the BIGGEST Couch in Perth…. and Australia!
