An evolving industry
The U.S. PTV industry has evolved and grown more sophisticated since its inception nine years ago with "American Idol." Although not all the voting was via cellphones, a record 74 million votes were cast for the 2007 finale program. This increase in popularity means that both carriers and mobile transaction networks must provide infrastructure enhancements to accommodate for high volume traffic of SMS messages associated with some of the hit PTV shows. This allows the "call-to-action" peaks of activity to move through the system so it does not become overwhelmed or shut down.
As for trends in PTV, we see several areas in which the user experience can be amplified. For example, as the social networking phenomena continues to flourish, consumers will soon be able to dial in to TV programs, send photos of themselves to the network via their cellphones and see themselves and their comments on the screen, taking viewer participation to a new level.
Another trend emerging in the industry value chain is the evolution to a sponsorship model, allowing text voting or trivia during programs to be sponsored by global consumer goods companies.
As the medium evolves, so do the ethics and principles by which it operates. Two of the mobile industry's associations, the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and the Mobile Entertainment Forum, have established participation TV committees to establish and maintain standards of this market in the U.S.
