Big Brother 3 Boosts June’s Text Message Total

More than 11 million people used interactive TV or SMS text messages to cast their Big Brother 3 eviction votes during the first six weeks of the show, an increase of 52% on last year, according figures released by the Mobile Data Association.

The figures show that SMS messages accounted for 24% of all interactive eviction votes, driving the text messaging total for June to 1.3 billion, an increase of 380 million on the same period last year.

According to the MDA, the amount of person to person text messages sent during June has almost tripled over a two year period. Britons now send 45 million text messages across the four GSM networks, compared to just over 32 million in June 2001. This takes the annual text messaging total to 8 billion, against a 12 month total of 16 billion for 2002.

Chairman of the MDA, Mike Short, said: “Text messaging is continuing to rise in popularity and diversity. As well as person to person text messaging we are seeing interactive text as a popular communications tool.”

The number of SMS advertising campaigns is also increasing and earlier this week 12Snap announced the launch of an SMS promotion targeting “affluent” consumers (see 12Snap Gets Bubbly With New SMS Ad Campaign), whilst Flytxt unveiled a text message competition for 18-25 year-old football fans (see Flytxt Launches SMS Competition For Football Fans).

Mobile Data Association: 01922 419 600 www.mda-mobiledata.org.uk

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