MarketingVOX: Video-based entertainment website Heavy.com, aimed at a younger male audience, has launched a mock-news program featuring, among others, a sock-puppet correspondent and a Palestinian shock jock-ette.

Heavy.com's new show, Heavy News, has begun offering original "news" video clips that, like much of the site's content, is edgy and irreverent, reports MediaWeek. One of the Heavy News "correspondents" is a sock puppet - purportedly "Peter Jennings' sock before he died." The intrepid Burger King has signed on as an advertiser, with its BK Stackers as the show's premiere sponsor.

Action figures of the mini construction workers who in the television ads build the Stackers (cheeseburgers with up to four layers of beef and cheese) serve as hand-held anchors on Heavy News sports segments and are present throughout the news channel, reports MediaPost. Crispin Porter + Bogusky developed the Stackers campaign.

Also, a group of Sumo wrestlers have been promoting the new "news" channel outside of several major news organizations in New York; Tuesday morning, they were featured on the Today Show, according to MediaWeek.

Heavy reaches about 12 million unique users each month, according to Nielsen/NetRatings.

Previous coverage:

- Heavy.com Snags Virgin Mobile as Sponsor

- Broadband Video Inventory Shrinks, Upfronts Multiply

- Heavy.com Blurs Line between Ads, Interactive Content

- Banned Super Bowl Ads Find Home on Heavy.com

- Burger King Sponsors Branded iPod Video Shorts

- Heavy.com Debuts Videogame-Based Comedy Webisodes