Monday 9 April, 2007

What happens to the contest SMS

We often wonder what TV programmes do with the literally hundreds of thousands of SMSs they get in response to their inane contests.

Do they call a random sample of senders to research what sort of people watch the show and what do they like in it?

Do they pass on such research as profiles of the show’s audience to advertisers? (Can the SMS senders be called representative of the show’s audience?)

Do advertisers hand the unsuspecting SMS senders’ numbers to tele-callers as ‘leads’? Why does every programme have a contest?

Can someone help us with these questions?