FourPlay at Red FM... try your luck..

Sikit-sikit lama-lama jadi bukit... in the old days, if you work hard and save, your pile will eventually grow to be a handsome sum. Today is the last day of Red FM's FourPlay. If you don't know about it...it's a bit late to tune in already.

Mobile phone and the entertainment industry.... they're good for each other; a mutualistic relationship! 8) The sms is a gold mine to the mobile company and entertainment industry. For this latest offering from Red RM's FourPlay, listeners send in smses hoping to be picked for the cash prizes. I wonder how many smses have been sent in to date... and how much they cost. Been searching in the net for the cost per sms (those fine prints are always hard to find)... some say it's RM0.50 per sms, some say it's RM1.50. Other Half tells me to try send one to FourPlay to find out the cost. I'm not even mulling over it!

It's a money spinner for the Station. Just think...30 000 hopefuls sms 5 times each, at 50 sen per sms, it will already generate RM75k (at RM1, it's a whopping RM150k!). And news reports state that according to the Station, the phone lines are already burning up even before the cue to call. So, 150 000 smses would be a very conservative figure. And the Station is only paying out RM50k as prize money; given out in sums of RM250, RM500, RM1000 and RM2500. All for 'tikam-ing' correctly... or getting the timing right... like playing one-arm-bandit. Could this be gambling overhauled? Feels to me like one... LOL! You've got to hand it to the marketing whiz who thought of this.

And since Red FM is operated by The Star, the paper also gives a hand in publicizing it... a little subtle report here and there... sort of to remind people of the potential prize money and how others were winning it with so few tries. So, many are convinced to try it. In the meantime, the smses keep the bukit growing for the operators.

The Station gets the sikit-sikit (little by little) from the people... but Red FM's bukit (hill) grows bigger; they go laughing all the way to the bank while the few winners feel happy about their wins. And the majority??? They won't even miss the sikit-sikit they gave for that little entertainment of trying to hit the jack pot. But these people won't have the sikit-sikit to build their bukit. 8( How's that for ingenuity??