The young “stars” of Armenia, pop singers and show hosts have become a quite interesting source of business and income due to their star status. The stars, mainly male ones, who appear on our TV screen almost every day, have a great army of fans, who wish to get not only their CDs or autographs but also dream of having face-to-face communication with them. Some new smart businessmen appeared, who have figured out how to bring the “stars” a bit down to earth and instead earn some money by selling the cell phone numbers of the stars. There are some phone card points in Yerevan where the salespersons offer a list of phone numbers and say that those belong to stars. The rules of show business affect this peculiar business as well. The price of the star’s phone number has a direct connection with the status of the star. Most expensive ones – 1500 AMD are the top stars of Armenia; more modest ones are valued at 500-1000 drams.
The main customers of such points are mainly young schoolgirls or students. The singers and the show hosts said that they receive about 15-20 phone calls daily from unknown girls. Some of them don’t want much from them – just a short conversation. In the end, they paid for that phone conversation. Some stars don’t mind those phone calls and keep using their numbers; others change their phone numbers and get surprised how rapidly those numbers again become so popular in the city.