Next time you send a SMS or make a telephone call for being a 'Crorepati', also ponder on the immense gains that the TV companies make by your call. The innocuous SMS that is used for seeking opinion, casting votes, expressing viewpoints among others are part of boardroom strategies to gain maximum mileage from your pockets. On an average, any reality TV show gets around 7 million text messages per episode. Rates varying from Rs 4 to Rs 6 per SMS, lead up to Rs 28 to Rs 42 million revenue per episode. So while the public dreams of striking the 'crore' and shaking hands with Big B or King Khan, it is the TV channels and the telephone companies that end up striking the real fortune (the channels and the telephone companies earn anything between Rs 1,460 million and Rs 2,200 million over a period of one year). After a most likely 50:50 split, it is a win-win situation for both.

So to get the public respond through SMSs, the strategy is to get them at any cost, after all the idea is to make themselves millionaires and not the other way around. So, if one or two from among millions end up earning a couple of crore, million others would be typing text messages on their mobile to mimic the winner!