The New York Times reports that AT&T Wireless sent text messages to a "significant number" of its 75 million customers urging them to watch the premiere of American Idol which was last night. AT&T Wireless is a sponsor of the show.

Needless to say, there were many unhappy AT&T customers.

AT&T was unrepentant, however, telling the Times, "Text messaging is the perfect way for us to tell people about this wildly successful show and to watch it."

Of course, as the Times also notes, "Because AT&T is a sponsor of 'American Idol,' only its customers can use their cellphones to vote for their favorite singers via text message â¿¿ so viewer participation means more revenue for AT&T."

Can we say, Ca-Ching?'

I use AT&T wireless, but didn't receive a text message. I must not fit the appropriate demographic, or maybe AT&T already knows that I have a profound and long standing dislike of American Idol.

Oh well, at least AT&T didn't have to pony up A$110,000 in fines as Optus, the Australian telecommunications company, did this week.

As reported by The Australian, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) fined Optus for "allegedly sending 20,000 electronic messages without accurate sender identification to its mobile phone subscribers." Doing so violates Australia's Spam Act.

The story says that the "messages promoted the OptusZoo entertainment service to Optus customer mobile phones with the sender identification â¿¿966â¿¿." ACMA said that "966" and "ZOO" were insufficient to identify who the sender of the text message was, hence the fine.

Optus, the second largest telco in Australia, said the company was changing its marketing approach to make it clearer when it is the sender of text messages to subscribers. Good idea, but at least Optus didn't make the sender id 666.

Update:

It looks like the AT&T ploy failed. According to the website TVbythenumbers, American Idol's premiere was off by 10% from last year's audience, and by some reckonings, the lowest since 2004.

Update:

In face of the firestorm of criticism, AT&T says it "only" sent messages to 3 percent or 2 million of its customers, the majority who had used texting to vote for an â¿¿American Idolâ¿¿ contestant in the past or who were â¿¿heavy texters," although it admits some receiving messages didn't fit in either category.

I don't think AT&T will be doing any mass text broadcasts anytime soon.