AT&T to sponsor Nashville Star show

By Giselle Abramovich

June 6, 2008

Country can text

NBC’s “Nashville Star” fans will be able to text in their votes this season for the first time since the show’s creation.

AT&T will be the official wireless sponsor for the sixth season of the popular music talent search show, integrating the text message voting. Nashville Star season 6 will debut Monday, June 9 as part of the broadcaster's All-American Summer.

“For a lot of the television-sponsoring that we are doing, the strategy is to enable customers to get as close as possible to the shows,” said Mimi Chan, Burbank, CA-based director of national marketing at AT&T. “We want customers to feel empowered even if they are just sitting on the couch.”

AT&T’s sponsorship of the show goes beyond just text polling. Customers can also opt-in to get mobile photo messages with pictures of their favorite contestants.

The wireless carrier will also introduce a mobile video-share feature soon.

This is not the only mobile initiative for NBC. It already offers text alerts, mobile games and WAP sites dedicated to shows such as "30 Rock," "ER," "Deal or No Deal," "Heroes" and "Late Night with Conan O’Brien."

NBC’s “Nashville Star” is hosted by superstar Billy Ray Cyrus, featuring solo acts of some of the best musical talent in the United States. This season’s winner receives a record contract and will perform at the Summer Olympics in Beijing, China.

The first votes will be cast during the season premiere at 11 p.m. ET. Viewers will be asked to call in their vote or if they are an AT&T customer, to text it in. All they need to do is send STAR to the four-digit short code assigned to each contestant.

Contestant numbers are listed during each voting show. Standard carrier fees are applied.

AT&T will be monitoring the poll submissions and send targeted ads to relevant customers.

For example, voters who vote many times may be sent a promotion regarding unlimited text messaging to replace their current pay-as-you-go plan.

"We are very sensitive regarding the way we communicate with our customers,” Ms. Chan said.

“We reach out only when we feel that our message is relevant to a particular customer," she said. "It's important that person feels like we are being helpful and not disruptive.”