American Idol generates 178 million texts while controversy rises over AT&T's actions
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AT&T representatives attended Mr. Allen's home town viewing parties and reports say that the reps offered free texting services to Mr. Allen's fans and gave out instructions on how to send multiple text messages at the same time. The rules of the show prohibit "power voting" using "technical enhancements". The carrier has said that the instructions on how to send blocks of text messages at one time came not from the company as a corporate service, but was the work of a "few local AT&T employees" in Arkansas. The company continued to say that these employees were caught up in the enthusiasm of trying to get a home town contestant to be named champion and as a result, they brought a small number of demo phones to parties which were offered to people to send texts selecting Kris Allen over Adam Lambert in the finals. The company said that they will make sure that their employees understand that such behavior is not to be repeated on American Idol or any other voting-type show. AT&T said that it "celebrates the competition, not individual contestants."
For it's part, Fox says it has a third party monitoring process that ensures the integrity of the voting. As such, the network claims that the actions of the rogue AT&T employees had no bearing on the outcome of the show and that the final results stand.
source: NY Times
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10 Comments
1. Galen20K posted on 20 Oct 2010, 01:43 0 0
ATT has Always been Fishy one way or Another.....
3. vzw fanman posted on 28 May 2009, 08:30 0 0
verizon voters should be allowed to vote for ai! that's discrimination!
4. *HOVA* posted on 28 May 2009, 09:49 0 0
There's always exclusive rights. I've seen the same where only VZW cust's can vote. But really, who the hell cares?
5. vzw fanman posted on 28 May 2009, 10:18 0 0
where have you seen where only vzw customers can vote? especially with such a successful show as ai?
6. TheCellDepotVZW posted on 28 May 2009, 10:20 0 0
What show did you watch where VZW customers can vote without spending $.99 per message... I only know of At&t doing that sort of one sided stuff...
7. TheCellDepotVZW posted on 28 May 2009, 10:24 0 0
In my opinion those employees would terminated for the actions. Cheating is cheating, even if it does not affect the total outcome. That and they cheated At&t out of how ever many messages they actually send. If it was My VZW employees who did that they would be fired on the spot!!!
10. metalpoet posted on 10 Jun 2009, 20:33 0 0
i hate how at&t is plastered everywhere like there really that good of service anyways. some of my friends have the iphone and act like there the top s*&$ but when i ask them if they cam even place a call they dont have signal so those at&t ppl who think there all that, they need to shut themselves up i admit verizon has awesome signal but crappy phones soi wont say that verzion is greatest but i will state facts. att has awesome phone and verizon has greatc signal
