Hurricane’s American Idol – Scandal Edition
So the big news today is that AT&T went to not one but 2 parties in Arkansas (Allen’s home state), each which help about 300 people during the Idol Finale. AT&T provided each guest with a cell phone and taught them how to “power text”, which shows you how to send 10 text’s at once, this apparently is against Idol rules.
OK, lets break this down. Of those 600, how many did not have Cell phones when they walked in? 100? no way, I will go with 10. OK from those 600, how many people did not know you could not send multiple text messages at once? this number is probably higher, lets say 200.
But even if everyone did not have a cell phone and did not know how to text:
600 people x 10 text messages = 6,000
Now lets say each person sent 20 of these
6,000 x 20 = 120,000 votes.
Ok so Allen won by a “landslide” and there was nearly 100 million votes so a landslide has to mean he got 60 million votes at least… So I don’t really think this had any affect (effect?, I never know).
From NY times:
AT&T May Have Swayed ‘Idol’ Results
LOS ANGELES — AT&T, one of the biggest corporate sponsors of “American Idol,” might have influenced the outcome of this year’s competition by providing phones for free text-messaging services and lessons in casting blocks of votes at parties organized by fans of Kris Allen, the Arkansas singer who was the winner of the show last week.
Representatives of AT&T, whose mobile phone network is the only one that can be used to cast “American Idol” votes via text message, provided the free text-messaging services at two parties in Arkansas after the final performance episode of “American Idol” last week, according to the company and people at the events.
There appear to have been no similar efforts to provide free texting services to supporters of Adam Lambert, who finished as the runner-up to Mr. Allen.
Since then, angry supporters of Mr. Lambert have flooded online chat boards with messages claiming irregularities in the competition’s voting.
Officials of Fox Broadcasting declined to discuss the situation. In a statement issued Tuesday, a spokesman for AT&T said, “In Arkansas, we were invited to attend the local watch parties organized by the community. A few local employees brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested.”