Premiere Phones In Oscar Sweeps

Premiere

Magazine is this month hosting an Oscar-themed text-message sweepstakes, a first for the movie monthly.

Academy Award winners picked via cell phones

The Premiere Mobile Movie Awards Sweepstakes lets cell phone users in the U.S. and Canada predict Academy Award winners via text message.

Fans text in and pay $2 to get a ballot and movie alerts on their phones. (Consumers can enter for free online.)

Players who correctly predict all winners in 12 categories go into a random drawing. The grand prize is a trip to Hollywood; lesser prizes include Sony Dream System home theater, a one-year Loews movie pass and Sony Electronics cameras and Walkman. Print, online and in-theater ads support.

The sweeps runs through Feb. 29 via mobile messaging shop MQube, Boston, with an assist from wireless content provider Kargo.

Hachette Filipacchi Media owns Premiere.