Voting by text message is a godsend for media in general

Alfasud

The mobile phone is a Godsend for the media. How many reality TV programmes have we had since Media sharks discovered that vulnerable people could be wooed into text voting for people on the likes of Your'e A Star. It wasn't enough to vote once. How many times do you hear "Keep the votes coming in", from the presenter. Almost every show has a phone-in or text-in competition with a stupid no-brainer answer. Please post any thoughts you might have on the matter

Random

It's a money making machine with a chance for people to win a prize. Like the lotto!

Voting for the sake of voking .. bah .. I won't be getting involved but if it makes your TV viewing more interactive then why not?

Why put the thread title in caps? It's considered shouting on the internet.

What's your thoughts on it?

Mossy Monk

Alfasud wrote: »

Please post any thoughts you might have on the matter

If people wish to spend money doing so then that's their business

Mr E

Thread renamed to remove caps.

alfasud - the way you worded your topic title and question, it sounds like you're writing a paper on the subject. Can you clarify your interest? Its a pretty focused topic (and I think most people will say "Yep.... so what?")

jor el

Yep, so what? :pac:

I would say it's a complete money making stunt, exploiting weak, stupid, impressionable or just plain naive people into parting with their money. But, so what. Most business is exactly this, and people have the choice as to whether they pay (text/call at premium rates) or not. Nobody is forced to do it, and they know the costs up front.

It's like the Lotto. It's a stupidity tax. But with a 10 million euro prize up for grabs, my 4 euro of stupidity was in today.

Alfasud

Did nort realise capital letters were offensive. I.m not writing a paper on the subject. Someone I know ran up a big phone bill when a neighbour was taking part in "your'e a Star". When all the excitement died down she was faced with the bill. The no. of votes weren't even stated on the programme which is a bit of a farce. Only one vote per phone should be allowed but that would not be lucrative to the programme makers or phone companies.

KerranJast

As an example I figure the Late Late Show prize every week makes RTE a nice profit. Example: €10k prize, say average 60,000 entrants at €0.60 a pop. Thats €36k in. Say 50% goes to the phone operators. That still leaves €8k profit and those are very conservative figures.