By Nnamdi Ojiego
Etisalat Nigeria, lead sponsor of the ongoing Nigerian Idol reality show has announced the introduction of voice voting, a new, innovative voting service to enhance subscribers’ voting for their favorite contestants throughout the duration of the Nigerian Idol show.

According to Etisalat’s Chief Commercial Officer Wael Ammar, voice voting for Etisalat subscribers was another way the company has simplified the voting process for choosing Nigeria’s 1st music Idol.

“One of the values that have consistently stood us out is the simplicity of our products and services. We realize that our voting public has already begun to build a strong affinity with the contestants and it is imperative that the voting process is as simple and as seamless as possible”, he disclosed.

He stated that the broadcast of the top 50 elimination phase has begun on Sunday, December 19, 2010 on television stations across the nation, while adding that the television reality show has already begun to generate frenzy with the voting public as Nigerians all around the country have commenced voting for their favorite contestants.

Some of the television stations that broadcast the one hour programme every Sunday include Nigerian Television Authority, NTA, African Independent Television, AIT, Silverbird Television, STV, among other state and private owned stations.

Meanwhile, the winner of the first ever Nigerian Idol will walk home with a cash prize of 7.5 million naira cash prize and a Sony BMG recording contract worth N5Million, an ipad, a blackberry phone from Etisalat with one year subscription and a number of other mouthwatering gifts, while runners up will go home with exciting prizes as well.

Etisalat subscribers and interested public can vote via SMS by simply texting their favorite contestants number to the short code 34365 (3IDOL) from any network because, SMS voting is open to all networks.