The Joy of Text
| The Joy of Text | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Genre | Entertainment Variety Documentary |
| Directed by | Peter Orton |
| Presented by |
Ulrika Jonsson Terry Alderton |
| Country of origin | United Kingdom |
| Original language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Jeremy Mills Jerry Foulkes |
| Producer(s) | Lisa Clark Nick Murphy |
| Camera setup | Multi-camera |
| Production company(s) | Lion |
| Distributor | BBC |
| Release | |
| Original network | BBC One |
| Picture format | PAL (576i) |
| Original release | 9 June 2001 |
| External links | |
| Production website | |
The Joy of Text was a themed night of television programmes centred on text messaging, shown on BBC One. It was broadcast on 9 June 2001, and featured three TV programmes: The Joy of Text: Live, Text Maniacs and X Text. The first programme, The Joy of Text: Live, was a 40-minute entertainment variety show hosted by Ulrika Jonsson and Terry Alderton, featuring celebrity guests and text-related games. This was followed by Text Maniacs, a documentary looking at surprising examples of text messaging use. X Text, the final programme, looked at the seedier side of texting.
The Joy of Text received negative reviews from media commentators, who criticised the night for its poor script and lack of entertaining content. Fewer than 3 million viewers tuned into the series, far fewer than the BBC were hoping. Viewers sent in a record 500,000 text messages during the show, some of which were compiled to form a tie-in book, also titled The Joy of Text.
After being commissioned by BBC One controller Lorraine Heggessey, The Joy of Text theme night was broadcast on 9 June 2001. It officially began at 7:25 p.m., with a brief five-minute introduction from TV presenter Ulrika Jonsson and comedian Terry Alderton. Jonsson and Alderton introduced the rest of the night's programmes, and invited viewers to text their favourite jokes into the show. This was followed at 8:15 p.m. by The Joy of Text: Live, a live, interactive entertainment programme. It was also hosted by Jonsson and Alderton, and ran for 40 minutes. After beginning with archive footage of mobile phone use during the 1980s, The Joy of Text: Live featured segments such as a man proposing by text to his girlfriend (who responded with "Yes I love you"), celebrity guest text messaging with pop group Hear'Say, and a text message race, where three members of the audience were challenged to text a friend asking them the name of Tony Blair's youngest child (Leo) – the winner was the first contestant to receive the correct answer back.
The Joy of Text: Live was followed at 8:55 p.m. by Text Maniacs, a documentary about use of text messaging, produced by Lion Television.Text Maniacs featured human interest stories, such as a story about a young woman whose life was saved when she texted her boyfriend to tell him that the boat that she and her friends were on had drifted out to sea. The programme also included interviews with a teenage girl who sent an average of 1,000 texts a month costing GB£300, and a runaway who used text to stay in contact with his family. The final programme of the evening, X Text, was a 15-minute adult-oriented show about the ruder side of texting, and was broadcast at 11:30 p.m.
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