AT&T announced that a total of 13.5 million SMS votes was reached during the past season of the reality TV show “American Idol”, compared to last season’s 7.5 million text message votes.
It looks as if the show has boosted the adoption of SMS: 40 % of “Idol” voters had never even sent a text message before.

The American entertainment industry is increasingly adopting elements of text messaging in its strategies.

Virgin Mobile announced its *MTV users will be able to vote for the best cameo in the MTV Movie Awards and messaging company Mobliss will carry out a text-messaging promotion campaign for the U.S. Air Force involving a trivia game called Air Force Snap Decisions.
Finally, Cingular Wireless proposed earlier this month its subscribers to text vote for the outcome of the recent “Survivor” season finale.

From RCR News, see also BBC News.