Goldmine in SMS-TV interactivity votes

Australian mobile operators and televisions have started to chase the so called ‘sms tv interactivity’ profit. Boom goes the dynamite! Apparently, a gold rush is emerging in the media sector with companies gravitating to the profits being made from combining SMS text messaging with television, news reports. Mobile phones have become the de facto "back channel" for interactive TV services, providing a potential boon for the free TV networks which do not have cable or satellite-based systems used by pay-TV to interact with their viewers. From the perspective of the TV networks, SMS has a double-whammy positive effect. First, it provides the TV networks a new revenue stream, as they share about a third of the average 55c cost per SMS message. But there is also evidence that a SMS element in a TV program decreased the chance of a viewer surfing to another TV channel. And of course… the ratings go down...eventually. The McKinsey Quarterly report last year envisioned that TV programs which feature a SMS feature could boost their ratings by up to 20 per cent.
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