American Idol attracts 41 million text messages
May 27 2005 - 01:59 PM ET | SMS
The fourth season of American Idol came to a close this week with Carrie Underwood being named the winner. While SMS is still largely unused in the US, American Idol viewers sent a record 41.5 million text messages during the last season. The popular Fox show solicites viewers to vote for their favorite contestents via telephone or SMS. Only Cingular customers could vote which makes the 41.5 million message total even more impressive.
The third season had
13.5 million SMS votes (since it took place before the Cingular/AT&T Wireless merger, only AT&T Wireless customers could use the SMS voting system).
There were over 500 million votes cast in all, the phone system still provided the bulk of votes.
