TVTV! Chat

A "program" on the Finnish TVTV! cable channel, where people "chat" by sending SMSes with their cell phones and see eachothers' messages on the TV screen.

Doesn't sound moronic enough yet?

• Each message costs 5FIM. (1USD = approx. 6.5FIM)
• The chat is monitored, and all SMSes with phone numbers, E-mail addresses, comments on the legalization of cannabis and so on are censored. Even if the message doesn't appear, you'll lose the money.
• With enough losers "chatting", the delay between sending an SMS and seeing it on TV can grow into hours.
• A typical message is something like "ANY DD-SIZED GIRLS FROM PORLAMMI??????+++" .. and most of them are much worse.
  You think you've seen it all by visiting popular IRC channels or reading usenet postings by AOL users? Think again.
• Nearly every time I have flicked past the chat, there has been a message stating "you guys are all so stupid for spending 5FIM in your messages!".
  Yeah. I bet that guy somehow managed to get his words of wisdom through without paying? :)

A friend recently attempted to calculate how much MTV3 makes with this diabolical scheme, and a rough esimate came to 700 000 FIM a month! They really found a great way to get $$$ off suckers, since the chat seems to be incredibly popular. I bet MTV3's only regret is that the birth rate of these victims is only one per minute.

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Update - March 26, 2001

Thanks to the chat's insane success - which hasn't even faded with time - MTV3 is now also broadcasting an identical show every weekday night. Even when the two channels have simultaneous SMS chats going, both are flooded with messages. Which goes to show there are a lot of suckers among the five million finns.

Tale of boundless frustration
caused by TVTV! Chat

Yesterday I got xawtv working. Woohoo. Finally, finally, I could watch TV when IRCing.

The cable offers me 12 channels (or at least that many I found with xawtv). 12 channels + IRC = boundless entertainment.

Too bad I IRC at evening and night. Thus, the best thing to watch (and I'm really stretching the word "best" here) was the TVTV! night chat.

So, 12 channels, tricky-to-install TV card, and this f%&#@ing thing was the only thing I could watch with it!

This, this thing was the new peak of my frustration! C'mon!

After this, not even the fact that my "real" writeups get average rep and my daylogs get voted to ionosphere will make me depressed... So if you have rep problems, I can really recommend to try this. =)

This program should banned in universal declaration of human rights or something...