I'm baffled as to why Fox wouldn't want to make money out of phonecalls. Is it illegal or something?

Oh, but they do...

Because the phone calls are free, more people will tune in to see the show. When we tune in, we get to watch all those commercials. The more people that tune in, the more Fox can charge for the commercials.

They make their money through advertising e.g. those Ford commercials, starring the contestants, that are shown during the results show; the judge's Coca Cola cups etc.

The texts do cost money, though.

I don't really buy that less people would watch if you had to pay for the calls... they could make so much more money if they just charged 20 cents a phonecall or something

I don't think as many people would get involved in the voting. Since Fox and 19 want to make money off of an artist, it stands to reason that they would want as many people as possible to have a stake in the results. Parents might not let their teenagers vote and some people might not have the money to spare for voting for contestants on a TV show. I know I would be hesitant to vote if it was not free. And my father, who is in his 70's, would never have voted for Carrie 129 times Wednesday night. (Btw that was his first time to vote.)

Apparently Fox, 19, etc. are making a lot of money from the commercials. And I assure you, there are LOTS of commercials. Money is also made from winners and other contestants who get a recording contract, as well as from sales of American Idol items. And now they even have their own magazine.

You miss the point that this is a British format which ran first in other countries, so we know how premium phone call voting works - brilliantly, if you are the broadcaster and owners of the show, and you want to make even more money ...

Everywhere else the show, called Pop Idol or whatever, has been the same number one success on TV, been sometimes even more successful in its own CD market (relative to size of country and market - Will Young biggest ever debut artist, third biggest single of all time, huge follow-up albums etc etc) AND also charged for phone calls with the first UK Pop Idol final having the highest telephone vote ever on British TV. The income (approx $65m which is a lot for UK) was split three ways between telecom co/TV station/producers. This income did not affect other revenues from advertising and sponsorship and off-air events. And it meant that voters actually had a stake in their favourites - they had paid to put them there.

Audiences are not that rational about the cost: oh, it costs 25c I won't vote - doesn't happen. You do vote for, say, Nadia, when she's in the bottom 3, to save her the next week. She's worth 25c to lots of kids and $2.50 to lots of dads!

I can only assume there are important reasons why this British produced show did not keep the premium phone calls. US doesn't allow it - or allow it for kids maybe? Too costly to collect the revenue/pay taxes? Previous bad experience in the USA (like this week everyone wanting their money back for the voting cock-up)? Audience resistance? Certainly the prevalence for TV show premium rate calls in the UK is huge - BBC does it all the time and it raises millions for charity, not always for profit. I don't understand why PBS doesn't do it, they need the revenue. There must be some rule about it - someone?

Paying for the phone calls does not keep the voting down. It makes the voting more considered if anything. And it does not affect ratings/CD sales/ad revenue or anything else.

I live in the US. I wouldn't pay for phone calls. They get a better turnout if people don't pay. Yeah, some people would, but I think a lot wouldn't bother or only vote once.

And I really don't know if this is true, but perhaps in the UK people are used to paying for most of their phone calls separately, instead of paying a monthly fee. I know some countries have all their calls charged by the minute. Of course, I may be completely wrong about this being the case in the UK......... Btw I do remember some people over there worrying about wasting their money on voting............

Also in the UK, I don't think Pop Idol and X Factor etc. would be able to charge as much for advertising as in the US, as their viewing audience would be much smaller than that here.

Me neither. It's just a TV show.


That's true. I have no idea what the television advertising rates are in the UK, but I doubt it's the same as they're charging for a show that airs twice per week with an audience of 25 million+ per episode in the US.

Oh, just have to add that I love the Nestle Choc Idol ads that ran during Pop Idol 2. So cute!

They were so cool! We even got the chance to vote for the winner via the Internet! LOL!

The only premium rate phone numbers in the US are sex chat lines (1 900 numbers) and people don't want them showing up on their phone bills. Also you can't do local rate because you would have to post dozens of phone numbers - you can't have one national "local rate" number. the only way to have a single number that works for everybody is to have a 1 800 number, and these are always free.
I am sure Fox would love to charge for the calls but there is no simple way to do it.

The UK has the second-highest most expensive TV rates in the world, after Japan. Audiences are more upmarket and better targeted than in the US for a number of complex reasons. However, since the audience in the UK peaks at about 15-17million for a show like this, and is often down at 6million, the absolute money brought in is less than in the US - there's only one fifth of the population.

But that really has nothing to do with it. That's like saying since Coke make money selling Coke they wouldn't have any other products or businesses to make even more money from. It's odd to us Brits that in the US this form of revenue is not used. I'm sure it's a regulation or something to do with the system of collecting the revenue and not an attitude problem with US viewers.