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Today’s television viewers are changing the landscape of broadcast media, and they are making brands and advertisers very nervous. Armed with personal video recorders (PVRs) such as TiVo and ReplayTV, which can be programmed to record any program at any time, this new breed of viewers have no incentive for watching commercials. And their numbers are rapidly growing: Market analysis firm In-Stat reported that 19 billion PVRs shipped in 2005, a 60% increase over 2004. However, television producers are employing a new strategy for keeping viewers in their seats, and keeping them tuned-in to live broadcasts: Using a cell phone, viewers can send a text message during a show to influence the program or enter a contest. And nine out of the ten top interactive campaigns, such as NBC’s “Player of the Day” vote during “Football Night in America,” the Deal or No Deal “Lucky Case Game,” and The Apprentice final winner vote, are enabled and protected by VeriSign digital infrastructure.

“Interactive Television” Reborn 
Interactive television is not a new phenomenon, but VeriSign digital infrastructure makes it simple to deploy and readily accessible to subscribers of most of the Tier 1 and Tier 2 wireless carriers in North America. This means that unlike the initial versions of interactive television, which catered to a small number of viewers with properly configured set-top boxes and subscribers with particular carriers, over 95% of America’s millions of viewers can participate in a VeriSign-enabled show.

This is how it works: A viewer, let’s call her “Sarah,” sees a TV show that features a contest: Viewers are asked to answer a multiple-choice trivia question by sending their selection via text message to a “short code,” for a chance to win a cash prize. To participate, viewers are told that they will be charged 99 cents on their mobile phone bill. Sarah thinks she knows the answer, and decides to enter, so she sends “3” to the short code advertised onscreen.

The short code has been purchased from the Common Short Code Association (CSCA)  by the producers of the TV show, and VeriSign handles the provisioning of this code across all of the participating carriers. VeriSign maintains contracts with most wireless carriers, and ensures that the game rules are compliant with the terms and conditions of all participating carriers. Sarah’s carrier (and dozens of others) have considerable revenue to gain from such contests, since they draw a substantial amount of usage through the carriers’ networks.

Sarah’s carrier receives the text message and automatically forwards it to the VeriSign SMS Gateway, based on the information associated with the short code. Next, the vote is routed to VeriSign’s internal voting gateway, housed in a secure data center. VeriSign’s proprietary interactive voting application keeps track of the total number of valid votes, disposes of invalid votes, and stores votes, the corresponding mobile numbers, and carrier info in a secure database. VeriSign then sends the premium charge to the carrier through a specialized billing server that is integrated with the billing systems of all major carriers. The charge for Sarah’s vote will appear on Sarah’s next monthly wireless billing statement.

VeriSign’s digital infrastructure can quickly scale to accommodate dramatic spikes in usage, which will be almost certain to accompany a successful campaign.

After closing the voting prior to the end of the show, VeriSign performs a query of all votes that selected the correct choice (in this case, “3”) and randomly selects a winner (in this example, Sarah is selected). VeriSign’s Account Management team calls the winner, gets her information and forwards her name and hometown to the TV station. Within moments, Sarah is announced as the winner, on-air, at the end of the show.

Because Sarah has carefully watched the show for the entire duration, she was able to enter the contest before it closed, and she was also present to hear herself announced as the winner on national television. Because Sarah and millions of other viewers have been dedicated to watching the show live, the show’s air time is highly valuable to advertisers.

An End-to-End Solution 
VeriSign operates digital infrastructure that enables and protects billions of interactions every day across the world’s voice and data networks. And unlike other companies that facilitate text-message voting systems, VeriSign offers a complete end-to-end solution that integrates votes from both cell-phones and the Web, and VeriSign employs a strategic approach to interactive marketing and subscriber contact, so that companies can gain the most revenue out of their interactive campaigns.

For more information about VeriSign’s solutions for interactive television, please visit the VeriSign® Interactive Application Services section of the VeriSign Web site.