Star Academy 8

InternetQ chosen to deliver a total voting solution for LBC's Star Academy, broadcasting to 17 countries in 3 languages

Background

For the past seven seasons, Star Academy by the Lebanon Broadcasting Corporation (LBC) has been the Middle East’s favorite reality talent contest, where aspiring pop stars compete for fame & fortune on a weekly show to win over the public vote. LBC is available on local terrestrial as well as satellite channels across the Middle East, Europe, America, Australia & Sub-Saharan Africa. For the eighth season of Star Academy (April-July 2011), LBC selected InternetQ as a new technology partner to provide voting solutions.

Solution

For the bulk of the voting, InternetQ provided robust SMS and IVR voting capabilities in three languages (French, English and Arabic) to viewers in 17 countries (Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Palestine, Iraq, Kuwait, Oman, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Egypt, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, UAE & Sudan). The IVR voting process was streamlined to simplify participation for people with any level of literacy. In addition, InternetQ supplied a range of new & innovative voting formulas. For the first time, Star Academy fans could vote via iPhone and iPad applications from anywhere in the world. InternetQ also developed an extensive social media campaign, including an interactive Facebook application and to help out fans in remote locations, an International Landline was set up to give everyone the opportunity to vote. A new TV Chat functionality was embedded in the stream, allowing users to send their personal messages to the TV screen during the show. Full moderation, both automated and manual, was applied to these messages: automated system filters followed by two-stage manual moderation was completed before broadcasting. Updated and streamlined custom on-air graphics, such as a crawler, live results and statistics, logos and messages were substantially improved. 

Result

This was one of the most demanding media voting projects, requiring massive geographical coverage, multilingual capabilities and multi-platform coordination. The result: increased messaging volume that delivered substantial revenues for both partners and future opportunities in a region with great potential.