Nothing Lost

Five years to the day, VIVA PLUS launched and I hated it immediately. I was a VIVA Zwei kid—that was the real channel, stuff that actually mattered. Then they replaced everything with this thing.

The whole channel was a disaster from frame one. Scroll bars the size of a fist eating half the screen. News about The Sims throwing parties and Mary J. Blige having period problems, hosted by people who thought giggling at their own jokes for hours was a career. It was dumb in that specific way that makes you angry at yourself for even caring.

After MTV took over, the death spiral just got faster. SMS voting, ringtone ads, phone quizzes, all the desperate garbage of a channel in freefall. So when VIVA PLUS got replaced by Comedy Central on January 15th, I didn’t feel robbed. Nothing there was worth mourning.

The only thing that actually made me laugh in their preview schedule was this: March into Four Rooms with Tine Hitler, nightly from 7:33 to 7:45. That’s funny. That’s got teeth.

If you’re looking for what comes next, I don’t have answers for you. GotV if you’re in Austria, MTV when it’s decent at night, Würfelzucker if you’re into that scene. I’m done thinking about this.