[Shaun]

Now I'm personally not suggesting anything, I just want to see what everybody has to say about the subject.

With a lot of fines and heavy punishments issued to television programmes such as GMTV, Saturday Night Takeaway and Richard & Judy recently, the awareness of competition "rigging" and supposed injustice has been intensified lately.

However, reports linked to shows such as Big Brother, I'm A Celebrity and the X Factor continue to go on.

Now I don't know if it's true myself, but according to my best friend Tom, who was up at the studios on Saturday supporting Emily in Hope, the audience were already aware that Hope were to be eliminated roughly 20 minutes before the announcement was made

He says it was shown on a television camera not far from where he was sat.

Now of course, as I wasn't there I cannot possibly presume anything, but there's certainly room for speculation there?

What are your thoughts? Are these types of show acting unfairly, or is it all just lots of phoney maloney?

[natjake2504]

I dont think so not now because itc are doing the refunds from other shows they messed up so cant see it happening again

[Red Moon]

Originally posted by ShaunWhat are your thoughts? Are these types of show acting unfairly, or is it all just lots of phoney maloney?

It' just phoney baloney.

What we are seeing in the press is a combination of factors. Firstly people don't totally trust the voting systems used by TV companies and the press are quick to exploit this, secondly rumors started on forums like this that there are problems with phone lines to get people to cast extra votes and finally after a person has lost thread are started by people who are part "sour loser" culture that is taking grip of reality TV who then feel something was wrong with the vote.

As I said in this thread: Jungle final Vote 'Fixed'

If you look at the treads on Digital Spy you can see this going on with "I'm a celebrity get me out of here".

Firstly you find the cheap tricks people pull to try and gain votes for their favorite. In this case it is someone saying that the lines are engaged so that other Janice supporters ring again to see if the reports are correct and hence give Janice another vote. It is an old trick we have seen pulled here before again and again

Secondly there is thread started by someone upset that Janice didn't win thinking it might be a fix. People who are taken in by the engaged phone lines story then start adding fuel to the fire and we end up with a newspaper story in the national press written by a reporter looking for a cheap story.

The same thing happened on here with the Twins during the final of Big Brother 8. People even thought Brians and the Twins voting percentages had been mixed up. For some people it is hard to accept their housemate/contestant didn't win.

Originally posted by Shaun
Now I don't know if it's true myself, but according to my best friend Tom, who was up at the studios on Saturday supporting Emily in Hope, the audience were already aware that Hope were to be eliminated roughly 20 minutes before the announcement was made

It's quite simple given the short voting period in the X-Factor to have a good idea 20 minutes into the vote who will win and who will lose. All you have to look at is the voting rates.... i.e how many calls a minute a particular act is getting. Once the phone lines have settled down it will be clear who will lose. This is what happened on saturday night to Hope. The audience must have got wind of it when the studio were setting up for the final song of the night.

[spacebandit]

Simply resolved,
watch the show, don't vote.

See if they get the message next time, and if they pull the plug on the show because of poor phone receipts then the whole point was to organise a way to fleece you of your money, the show was merely a conduit to the company bank account so they could get paid extra with your money and cut out the pesky middlemen of the tv companies and advertisers .

The phone money is the icing on the directors and shareholders cakes - the commercial aritime sold pays for the show + profit, everything else is greed. Don't finance it