OMG!!! 100m taps!

Wow. We’ve just issued this press release:

The X Factor ‘Tap to Clap’ app passes 100 Million interactions from over half a million users in just five weeks
Developers behind The X Factor ‘Tap to Clap’ resurrect the ‘clap-o-meter’ of previous talent shows

London, UK – September X, 2011 – Live Talkback, the social TV company, today announces that the UK public has clapped and booed more than 100 million times through the Tap to Clap dual screen play-along produced for this year’s The X Factor. The Tap to Clap app was commissioned by talkbackTHAMES digital, with ITV and Syco, and developed by Live Talkback following the huge success of the social buzzer they ran during the 2011 series of Britain’s Got Talent.

Tap to Clap, incorporated into the official The X Factor UK 2011 mobile app for Apple iPhone and iPod Touch, the official The X Factor UK website and social media properties, allows the TV audience to express their opinion of each act while the show is broadcast. Latest statistics indicate that the mobile app is enormously popular and highly rated, with more than 581,000 downloads since the show premiered five weeks ago.

Robert Marsh, Head of talkbackTHAMES digital, who are behind the comprehensive interactive proposition for The X Factor, heralded the success of the app: “This is the first year in which we have commissioned an official The X Factor app and our expectations have been surpassed. People are using the app to play along at home and make sure their voice is heard – whether they agree with the judges or not. Receiving over 100 million claps and boos with Live Talkback is a true milestone.”

“The reason Tap to Clap is so compelling lies in its simplicity. When creating new ideas for social TV interaction we never forget that the TV show is the main event with the second screen enhancing it creating a sense of involvement that viewers want to share” explains Matt Millar, CEO of Live Talkback.

“Tap to Clap resurrects the concept of a ‘clap-o-meter’ but with the real-time reaction of the TV viewing audience aggregated for all to see.”

Tom Dolan, Head of Entertainment, ITV Online & On Demand added: “We’ve been incredibly impressed with the reaction from audiences to this year’s show - across all platforms. Fans have a huge appetite to interact with The X Factor experience and Tap to Clap is a fantastically engaging and simple way for them to do so in real time.”

The X Factor is one of the most-watched entertainment programmes in the UK. Airing on ITV, the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, The X Factor was created by Simon Cowell and is owned and co-produced by Syco TV (a joint venture between Simon Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment) and talkbackTHAMES (a FremantleMedia company). The official X Factor website, www.itv.com/xfactor, is produced by talkbackTHAMES digital with ITV and is the online home for The X Factor 2011. TalkTalk is the broadcast sponsor of The X Factor and lead sponsor of the live finals at Wembley Arena.

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For more information please contact:

Matt Millar at Live Talkback
Mobile: +44 7900 496487
Email: [email protected]
Twitter: @millarm Skype: millarm

About Live Talkback

Live Talkback is a team of designers and developers who have some big ideas on how the very best second-screen TV experiences should work. To support these ideas Live Talkback has created a mass-scale, real-time interaction platform that is now used to power exciting interactive experiences for some of the biggest TV audiences around, including Britain’s Got Talent and The X Factor. Live Talkback continues to develop this platform to power interactive and social TV apps and widgets for broadcasters and producers around the world, including Sky News, ESPN, Liverpool FC TV, ITV This Morning and others, as well as a consumer app called Tellybug. Search for it on the AppStore and see how Live Talkback is busy working on bringing the TV audience to your living room.

Live Talkback are makers of The X Factor UK 2011 official mobile app and Tellybug, the first dedicated UK iPhone App for social TV. http://www.tellybug.com

ABOUT THE X FACTOR

The X Factor is one of the most watched entertainment programmes in the UK. Airing on ITV, the UK’s largest commercial broadcaster, it was created by Simon Cowell and is owned and co-produced by Syco TV (a joint venture between Simon Cowell and Sony Music Entertainment) and talkbackTHAMES (a FremantleMedia company). The X Factor has been rated the number 1 Entertainment Show in the UK for the past 3 years reaching record audiences in 2010 of 20.2 million for a 60% audience share. The official X Factor website, www.itv.com/xfactor, is produced by talkbackTHAMES digital with ITV and is the online home for The X Factor 2011. Local versions of the format have been successfully produced in 25 territories worldwide, and The X Factor will make its US debut on Fox in Autumn 2011.