The Hindu Business Line : Star sparkles with gold & 67 lakh SMS

Star India had hit upon the idea of conducting a reverse auction of gold jewellery, worth Rs 20 lakh, of a protagonist in its serial, Kahiin To Hoga. And 67 lakh text messages later, Ms Jaya Jaitley, 35, Senior Tax Assistant at the Income Tax office in Delhi, has emerged as the winner.

Ms Jaitley placed the single-lowest bid of Rs 95.72. She sent over 1,000 SMS text messages to `7827' to secure the lowest winning bid.

Apparently, the staggering response of 67 lakh messages generated in 14 days for `Kismat Jagao 7827 Lagao', the reverse auction, could be good enough to find its way into the Guinness or Limca Book of Records as the single-largest wireless text mobile phone activity.

Star, like other broadcasters, has found merit in tapping the wireless media. It has been doing a series of SMS interactivity on many of its programmes. "It is the power of aggregating the television and wireless media," said an official of Star India.

Star has entered into a revenue sharing arrangement with all service providers in India for launching this service.

SMS responses to shows on Star's channels have come in not only from big metros but also from small cities across India, the official said.