Armchair fans of ITV's Who Wants to be a Millionaire? are being given the chance to play along at home for cash prizes of up to £1,000.
Would-be millionaires will be able to test their skills in real time by texting through the answers in special codes on their mobile phones.
The scheme will be tested on Classic Millionaire, the recently launched daytime version that repackages old episodes of the show.
Celador, the programme's producer, has linked up with Whoosh, a new company formed by the former Channel Five deputy marketing director, David Bainbridge, to allow users to answer the questions worth £1,000 and upwards on the show.
The game will cost £1 a time to play plus the standard cost of each text message and the person who answers the most questions in the shortest amount of time will win £1,000.
Easyjet specialising in cheekily cashing in on people in the news to advertise its flights used Who Wants to be a Millionaire? cheats, Major Charles Ingram and his wife Diana to flag up cheap with the strapline "No Major fraud necessary".
Check yourself: Could you win Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Try here.
One winner each week will have the chance to appear on the next series of the prime time show, which begins in the autumn.
Despite the growing popularity of texting it has not been possible to deal with a high volume of messages and declare winners in a short period of time.
This is because of the unreliability of texts and the probability that thousands, if not millions, will be sent simultaneously.
However, Whoosh has built its own network that bypasses the 50 million-plus messages that are sent over the existing mobile networks every day.
"The crucial thing is we must know if you sent in your answer in before or after Chris Tarrant has read it out," said Mr Bainbridge, adding that every message is time-stamped to the second it was sent.
"Immediately you can start to see the implications for a People's Who Wants to be a Millionaire? or a People's Weakest Link with everyone playing along at home," he added.
Bruce Van Den Bergh, the Celador digital boss, claimed the initiative was a world first and, if successful, would be integrated into the new series of Millionaire in the autumn.
"We are trying to find different ways in which people can consume the brand," he said.
"People love engaging with the show and this gives them one more option."
Celador hopes the interactive element will increase loyalty to the show as well as bring in extra revenue.
The programme, once a ratings blockbuster, had been flagging before receiving a boost from the recent court case involving Major Charles Ingram.
Whoosh's initiative could be an important development for text messaging.
MediaGuardian.co.uk last year revealed tens of thousands of text messages to television programmes were arriving too late.
Bottlenecks at the mobile networks prompted some broadcasters, including BBC Radio 1, to discard thousands of messages as there was no way of telling when they arrived.
Owen Gibson, media.guardian.co.uk
