Ok, so leaving out whether you like (not me), hate (not me either) or watch out of masochism (me!)…

I would have thought that after the furore of a few years ago over competition winners on Blue Peter, mates of staff “winning” phone in competitions, etc. that it would be extremely difficult to manipulate the result of these shows now.

I watched the results show last night…well, not quite, just the bit where the results are announced and then the judges decide who to “send home”. Something Simon Cowell said sort of pricked my attention…it was along the lines of “…what we’ve done this week is put the show back in the hands of the public…” I get the feeling that he said it deliberately to get people wondering.

So, how do shows like this work nowadays? Is there a computer readout at the end of voting that only one person sees? Are there independent observers a la National Lottery? I know a lot of you hate the X-Factor and jeebus knows why I watch it, it drives me up the wall too…but this question also applies to any phone in voting shows…Strictly etc.

Could Cowell manipulate it to his advantage? Would “too many” people have to know? Is it cleaner than clean and is it “better TV” if we think that maybe the judges conspire?

Anybody on STW work on shows like this in the past and has a bit of insider knowledge?

The judges know the voting figures, so they can have a pretty good guess at who is going to keep being in the bottom two week on week but who will get people voting for the others to get them out.

If there’s a dance/sing off for the bottom two, they judges can ‘fix’ it.

Was he not referring to the Facebook groups and the likes deliberately voting to keep Wagner in.

I have no idea never watch the utter trash.

Was he not referring to the Facebook groups and the likes deliberately voting to keep Wagner in.

Aye, I think he was, but it was just the intimation that whatever outsiders tried to do to derail the programme, that Cowell will take control if he has to. I don’t believe he did…but maybe he liked to imply it.

Cowell could easily have kicked in a few 100,000 votes to keep his dream afloat.

Get your tin-foil hat ready:

They changed Wagner’s phone number this week. The thinking was that a lot of the Facebookers behind the “Wagner to Win” campaign probably don’t even watch X-Factor, so they’ll have carried on oblivious with the old number on speed-dial.

Why do you even care? 🙄

The manipulation has occured on the production side of things, when someone constantly receives so few votes (Katy) but survives, it is obvious that the production company (aka Cowell) want her to stay. The bonus this week was that the public vote allowed the contestant with the lowest number of votes to go immediately – she’d have been gone weeks ago if they did that all the time.

Louis effin Walsh constantly saved Katy despite professing never to quite “get” her style etc.

I’ve managed to completely avoid watching this rubbish this year. It’s actually more boring and tedious than the World Cup.

Say what you like about them, but at least FIFA have the decency to only inflict their tiresome celebofest on us once every four years.

Why do you even care?

It’s not that I “care” so to speak you tosspot into which only tosspots would toss. I’m just interested to know if it would be possible to manipulate these shows and what safeguards are put in place to protect the integrity of the voting process.

The voting process doesn’t need to have any integrity does it? It’s just a way for the production company to make money, dressed up so that the viewers think they’re actually influencing it.

The Wagner thing is a case in point, think how many extra votes the X Factor got by people who didn’t want him to win but thought they’d vote to counter the protest votes.

I don’t watch it, nor do I really care.

The voting process doesn’t need to have any integrity does it?

I just thought there had been new rules implemented a few years ago. Mind you, I don’t think XFactor was called into question around the time. I don’t really care to the point of losing sleep about it, but the innocent voters shouldn’t be hoodwinked should they? 🙂