SMS votes involve the viewers

The Danish Broadcasting Corporation (DR) continues earlier successes by allowing the audience and viewers to play a decisive role in the TV show”X-Factor”. DRs own studies show that nine in ten of the viewers find that sms votes contribute positively to the content of the show.

DR invites the viewers to be judges when the greatest song talent is found in the show “X-Factor”. The audience and viewers can vote on their favourite singer by sending a sms and this creates an added value to the show, program manager Johan Winbladh says:

”The viewers have their own favourites and it enhances the participation and Show experience when they can influence what will happen. There is no doubt that sms integration creates added value and a lot of traffic apart from the traffic that can be measured directly – that is all the social interaction at home in front of the television before and after the votes have been given. X-Factor is indeed the viewers’ show”.

Study: Democracy is best

With X-Factor, DR continues its previous success,”Stjerne for en aften” which was broadcasted for the first time in 2003. Audience votes via sms was then a new phenomenon and DR made its own viewer study which gave a very clear result: 87% of the participating viewers were happy to be able to vote because the show became more exiting, relevant and entertaining. DR was in particular pleased with the fact that even the group of viewers who did not participate in the voting found the new feature exiting.

From TV to ring tones

DR chose Unwire as supplier of the technique behind the sms voting system. And the system supplies other communication channels: when the viewer has sent a vote, he or she receives a sms which confirms the given vote but it also contains a link to X-Factor on DRs mobile homepage. On the homepage, it was possible to get ring tones with the performances of the potential stars. That way, the Sri Lanka sisters and the twins René and Michael became originators of the most downloaded ring tones that year.

Confidence in the mobile solution eliminates fixed network voting
The security in the voting systems also plays a decisive role when a show like X-Factor, which had 2.2 million viewers for the final show, was launched.

”It would have been a disaster if the votes were lost. The show would collapse if anything went wrong with the voting system. However, we have complete confidence in the Unwire system and to underline this we have stopped fixed network voting completely. We did not dare to do so in the beginning but we have done so now because we know the Unwire system works. We are completely confident with the security of the system”, Johan Winbladh says.

Supply and demand

Unwire won the contract with DR as a result of an EU tender where internal and external consultants scrutinized the company focusing on price, quality, soundness, relations and organisational structure:

”We have had a very good communication with Unwire. It is obvious that when you chose a supplier who is to supply for a long time, you have to like the supplied product and we got exactly what we asked for”, Johan Winbladh says.