2.5 Million Text Messages Sent to TV Show

The first major wireless interactive TV tie-in ever seen in the USA has hit its first major milestone and is the biggest success story in U.S. text messaging history. On Tuesday evening, April 8, 2003, the hit series "American Idol," in which one contestant is voted off each week by viewers at home, received more than 2.5 million text messages, including polls, sweepstake entries, trivia and votes. In addition, Mobliss received the one-millionth vote via text messaging. The vote came from the Pittsburgh area.

AT&T Wireless has engaged Mobliss, a mobile media company, to make voting for a favorite contestant even more compelling by enabling users to vote via text messaging, using the same contestant codes as those used by traditional call-in voters. The application runs on Mobliss' SMS moTV platform and is available exclusively to AT&T Wireless subscribers.

At one point, nearly one thousand text messages per second have been received during the voting period after each show, the highest peak text messaging traffic the U.S. has seen to date.

"The response to American Idol's text messaging voting option has been tremendous. Clearly, text messaging has caught America by storm," says Brian Levin, President of Mobliss. "An interactive TV component allows wireless carriers, brand marketers and consumers to utilize text messaging in an engaging, entertaining and profitable way."

In addition to text voting, viewers are using text messaging services to answer sweepstakes trivia questions, participate in on-air polls and send in their comments about the show.

Adding an interactive TV component to an overall marketing strategy is one of the hottest topics in the media, marketing and wireless industries today. Indeed, it is estimated that messaging applications will generate US$2 billion in revenues by 2005, compared to US$531 million in 2002, according to a recent report by Morgan Stanley.

"Mobliss has consistently delivered for us throughout the American Idol series," said Jon Summers, Vice President of Product Development at AT&T Wireless Mobile Multimedia Services. "We are very pleased with the level of responsiveness and competence that their organization has demonstrated in support of our text messaging campaign for American Idol."

Posted to the site on 23rd April 2003