For the Young, Restless and Mobile, Sprint Offers Drama

Torrid dialogue on your cellphone? Now you can pay extra for it.

Sprint Corp. this month began beaming a soap opera produced for mobile phones to customers who have its PCS Vision service, an extra $3.95 a month and a high tolerance for florid soliloquies.

“The Spot,” which had a short run on the Web nine years ago, “follows five 20-somethings, all living together in a Santa Monica house,” according to a company news release. Daily episodes of the show, a fictionalized knockoff of MTV’s “Real World,” feature audio snippets from the characters along with still pictures that refresh every 10 seconds.

Among the stars: Logan, a brooding bartender who favors tank tops and such oratorical turns as “I got some huge magnet buried in my skull that attracts trouble.”

“The Spot” is the latest example of mobile phone companies trying to exploit the technological features of new handsets. Text messaging, photos and games all proved popular. Why not voyeurism on the go?

“I have never heard of anything like this before,” said analyst Mike McGuire, who covers mobile entertainment for technology research firm GartnerG2. “I am not sure they are going to get anyone to pay for it, but then again I didn’t think ring tones would be a big deal either.”

Sprint would not say how many customers have signed up since the series debuted two weeks ago. But “given the cultural phenomenon of reality-based programming, we thought it would be a great thing to offer,” said Dale Knoop, Sprint’s manager of multimedia content.

“The Spot” could become a blockbuster, or, in the words of Logan, Sprint may find “it’s like knowing there’s a cliff straight ahead and yet you can’t stop heading straight for it.”