Producers:
South Pacific Television | Fremantle | Grundy |19
TV Network:
TVNZ, TV2
When:
2004, 2005, 2006

NZIdol, part of the worldwide Idol phenomenon, became one of the country’s highest rating shows for three consecutive years. Lateral was the SMS, 0900 and mobile services partner for NZIdol for the three seasons screened to date.

Over the three year period Lateral added several ancillary services such as:
-  Mobile Alerts, programme updates, etc
-  Mobile content downloads.
-  IdolChat a mobile community and Chat service

The IdolChat service was notable as it managed to take advantage of a very large viewing population, giving them the equivalent of mobile “water cooler talk” and prolonging the programme’s engagement with them.

Lateral Profiles is responsible for SMS voting on all mobile networks and 0900 voting on landline networks, consolidated all votes and delivered results to the studio.

All content relating to the programme, including voting, was premium.  Votes costs 99c, alerts 50c and downloadable content varied in price from $3.50.

NZIdol adopted an experimental approach to many episodes, which required voting information to be constantly available real-time in the studio and to the presenters earpiece.

Lateral developed a real-time reporting system (15 second refresh) which displayed information to monitors in the studio.

Although voting was charged at premium rate, the volumes were very high, with millions of votes recorded.  NZIdol perennially remains New Zealand’s biggest interactive television event.

Summary:

1. A high volume, multi-carrier, premium voting service
2. Real time results refreshed into the studio every 15 seconds
3. Integration of 0900 and SMS results
4. Creation of a Mobile Social Network around the programme
5. Downloadable content services

IdolChat created an ongoing relationship between viewer and programme, prolonging self-generating engagement well after the show finished.