Phone and SMS Voting

[Inside Australian Idol]

Unlike international versions of the Idol series, phone voting and SMS voting will be charged at 55 cents for Australian Idol. In America and Canada voting in their Idol series were free of charge, so the wider population could cast their vote- not just the rich or friends of the contestants. 55 cents is the same phone voting and SMS voting charge for Big Brother on Network Ten and is also administered by Legion Interactive.

What do you think?
55cents for Phone and SMS voting
A good deal?

INSIDE AUSTRALIAN IDOL
www.insideaustralianidol.tk

[nicki]

I really don't understand how Daniel got thru then...girlies (don't they have to ask permission) and grannies (how much can they afford???). If it was free, yeah sure they'd all be ringing up, but to be charged like Big Brother....I dunno...I really wish Lorena was in the final 10, so I'm not voting anymore anyway!

[Inside Australian Idol]

This response from talent_should_win on the official yahoo group


Who pays the phone bills - not the majority of the voters.



I made this point in another post but wanted to make it in a main post. I think
you will find the majority of the votes are made by people who are not directly
responsible for their phone bills. Those of us who are vote once or twice and
hope that sense prevails.

The producers of Idol will probably be making enough money from the
sponsors of the show, so they could at least make the vote the cost of a local
call so that more people could vote. However that is not the point, they also
aim to make as much money as possible.

That said it may be in BMG's interest to invest a little money now in some of
the contestants and vote a few thousand times themselves. Then again they
could already be doing it in the hope that the mediocre ones picked already
will fade into oblivion while he real talents like Cosima and Rebecca will
launch their careers without further aid from the show.