BBC1 joins text message mania

[Louise]

The BBC is launching a search for rude text messages, jokes and stories for a BBC1 theme night devoted to the growing phenomenon of mobile phone text messaging.

The raunchy material is being collected for a late night BBC1 show devoted to the lewder side of text messaging.

The BBC1 controller, Lorraine Heggessey, will be jumping on the SMS bandwagon on Saturday June 9, with an evening of programming, The Joy of Text, hosted by Ulrika Jonsson.

"The craze of text messaging has really taken off," said Ms Heggessey. "We wanted to involve viewers in a night that explores the way it affects us all."

This will mark the first time SMS has been the subject of such a high-profile, mainstream TV show.

Niche channels including MTV and Rapture TV, which targets a youthful dance club audience, make extensive use of text messaging in their programming.

ITV and Channel 4, the broadcasters of reality shows Survivor and Big Brother, are also planning to make SMS news and gossip a major interactive element of the service they offer viewers this summer.

The BBC1 themed evening will feature a mass text, with viewers encouraged to send jokes or a message to friends and relatives.

These messages will be published in a Joy of Text book, which is expected to be in the shops within a week of the show being broadcast.

The Joy of Text evening on BBC1 will also feature a 40-minute live studio-based entertainment show, to be presented by Jonsson and produced by BBC Entertainment.

The programme will go out from 8.10pm and feature celebrity guests and a text messaging quiz.

Ms Heggessey has also commissioned a 50-minute documentary from Castaway producer Lion Television about the SMS phenomenon.

This programme will feature stories including a man who met his future wife by randomly text messaging women.

The 15-minute programme about the saucy side of SMS is due to go out at around 10.30pm.

Source: http://www.mediaguardian.co.uk/newme...495405,00.html

[chris bartley]

Another TV producer searching for a new low !

Difficult to think of an even cheaper way of getting content for a program - but then I'm not a TV producer