Fleecing Lambert: Did a Texting Trick Throw 'Idol' for Kris Allen?

DID AT&T GIVE "American Idol" contestant Adam Lambert the finger? Or more to the point, did some AT&T employees turbo-charge the fingers of fans of his opponent, Kris Allen, to help Allen win the mega-popular singing competition?

It's possible, according to a report in the New York Times, which alleges that AT&T employees in Arkansas taught Allen fans how to "power text," or send a super-charged text with the strength of 10 our puny human text messages.

The Times makes reference to an Arkansas Democrat-Gazette story that reported on Allen's win and opened the door to questions about how so many text messages were sent so quickly. When you read the text of the story, it's no wonder folks got curious. An excerpt:

In Conway after Tuesday's performances, fans at the Estes Stadium watch party took out wireless phones and started making calls and firing off text messages - some voting on their own devices and others on phones borrowed from AT&T, which supplied about 50 display units and representatives to teach multiple "power texting."

AT&T also made about 30 phones available in a "texting zone" at a watch party at the Peabody Little Rock hotel, where Megan Lynch and friend Rainey Gibson, both 22, watched Allen perform his first song of the night, Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine."

And then, there's this from another Democrat-Gazette story:

Among the Arkansans who helped Allen gain the title with their votes was Erika McMahan of Conway, who held a sign at her hometown's watch party that read: "We voted 11,692 times for Kris Allen last night."

"There were three of us. It wasn't all me!" she said.

Bobbie Kierna of Greenbrier, who wore a Kris Allen shirt to the Peabody finale party, said she stayed up texting until 11:48 p.m. Tuesday and sent 10,840 votes for Allen.

Said AT&T in a statement to the Times:

In Arkansas, we were invited to attend the local watch parties organized by the community. A few local employees brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested.

No such assistance was apparently offered to Lambert fans, the Times reports.

The Times' report is picking up steam on the Internets — including the Americanidol.com message boards.

But at least one "Idol" blog — the ever-thorough Mjsbigblog.com — says all the hoopla is much ado about nothing.

If the Times writer had any sense of Idol history, he'd know that AT&T rep-attended Idol parties have been going on for years. I remember hearing about reps helping Elliot Yamin and Taylor Hicks fans text back in Season 5. ...

It's business as usual for Idol sponsors, AT&T, who attend these Idol viewing parties hoping to sell more phone services. No big conspiracy theories here. And anyway, I highly doubt a couple of phone salespeople showing some Kris Allen fans how to text vote made a difference in last week's results.

But, now that the Times has covered it, watch as this non-story explodes on the news cycle in the next couple of days ...

Happy to help. I guess.

I suppose it doesn't surprise me that fans — including those who work for AT&T — might do whatever they could to help their chosen guy win. Especially since I'm thinking that being the dude or dudette who can show rabid "American Idol" fans how to score some big points might make one mighty popular at parties.

However, even if there wasn't an AT&T rep to walk them through it, Lambert fans weren't totally left in the dark on how to text like there's no tomorrow. A set of easy-to-follow power-texting instructions are pretty easily found on Adam-lambert.org. And I'd assume that folks younger than me who use their cell phones like I rely on my trusty quill and parchment probably know how to power text without help from anybody.

Votes like "Idol's" are going to be shaped by outside factors. It's a shame, but that's the way it is. In the end, I think I'd like what most of the fans out there would like to see: a straight up-or-down vote, may the best singer win. I think Kris makes a reasonable winner. Adam would have, too. And no amount of technological wizardry would have kept at least one camp of fans from being disappointed in the outcome.

Besides, it sounds like Adam might just wind up singing with Queen. So maybe things didn't turn out so badly for him after all.

Photo courtesy Fox

Posted By Greg Barber at 12:21 PM on May 27, 2009 Tagged in Arts & Events , Idol Chatter , Television

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