Audience participation by SMS on French TV shows. A gold mine

Swiss weekly TV8 (in French), reports on the success of viewer participation by SMS on French TV shows and the broadcasters' newly found good fortune.

There's hardly a show on the air today from French television - be it in entertainment, politics or sports - that does not sollicit viewer participation by text messaging in some way.

Encouraging television viewers to send SMS has become a means in itself. Whereas before TV shows were doing their best to get viewers to stick with their show and not change channels, they now plead for their vote, their opinion, their feedback - by SMS.

The total text messaging votes for the French television channels combined reached 100 million euros ($126 million) in 2005.

And 2006 is looking even better. For the first semester of 2006, TF1 has already reached 100 million euros and Channel M6, for the first time, has earned more with SMS than with with advertising.

emily | 2:38 PM | SMS and Television |
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