Voice of India

Posted on | October 4, 2007 |

Rediff reports that the two finalists of Indian Idol 3 drew a combined tally of 7 crore SMS votes between September 14, when the lines were opened for voting, and September 23, when the voting ended.

If we take the sms cost of each vote at Rs 3, the revenue generated via SMS during the nine days of voting would be around Rs 21 crore.

• 77 lakh votes per day
• 3.2 lakh sms per hour
• 5400 sms per minute
• 90 sms per second

Krishna Durbha, Head - Revenue and Marketing, Reliance Communications says:

“These programs are essentially about immediacy, People believe they are endorsing their stars; they also believe they have a voice in the outcome and that their opinion matters, and so they send SMSes favour of their favourites.”

The numbers are just mind boggling. Someone needs to do a study of the Indian Idol, Vote4Taj and other reality shows phenomenon in India.

If sms voting was allowed in Indian Goverment elections, we would have more than the average 50% voting and perhaps better elected representatives. But thats not possible.

I think there is an opportunity to start a not-for-profit democratic People’s Forum which allows online and mobile participation. The issues, voting and opinion can be aggregated on a independent platform (and yet emergent), making it a credible source. Media can then genuinely issue calls to activism on issues of importance. It will help in riddance of vote fragmentation and accusations of emotional manipulation towards earning revenues via SMS; also making the activism of some consequence.

Voice of India?

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