urne/Doctor Who thing, as I couldn’t bear to watch the ITV2 aftershow.
For a start, Ant and Dec cried plaintively that “it’s been a tough couple of weeks”. Yes, because the show you hosted was earmarked as having diddled TV viewers out of millions — and no one lost their jobs. They had the temerity to congratulate the Saturday Night Takeaway team as well. Congratulations for what? Not getting the sack for ongoing, persistent and wilful noncompliance that defrauded the general public? That got me so angry, I nearly laughed at one of Sir Trevor Macdonald’s awful, scripted jokes just to cheer myself up.
The other thing was the additional phone vote for Most Popular Talent Show — and not just because the closing deadline was given as the highly nebulous “start of part five” (what’s wrong with picking a specific time and sticking to it?)
When the initial shortlists went up for public voting on 15 October, there was no mention of an additional phone vote. Indeed, it wasn’t until the 29th October that news of the additional vote only seemed to have reached the highly dedicated Loppies (in the words of the lovely Anna Pickard, they’re excitable, rabid even — but in a nice way, I’m sure). The first mention I saw was when Loppy Ali B noted it in her comment, after having read it on another site.
And here’s where it shows just how little trust I have left in British television after all the recent months of controversies. You see, right now I’m not sure I believe that it was always the plan to open the phone lines for the Most Popular Talent Show category on the night of the awards. If someone to suggest that it was a last-minute decision made by ITV as a way of ensuring that the voting went The X Factor’s way, I have to say I wouldn’t dispute it.
I should say categorically now, that there’s no reason on earth to believe that there was any malice or attempt to game the system in ITV’s favour. Particularly with Michael Grade’s ‘zero tolerance’ apporach to all such matters, I’m absolutely positive that no-one would even dare. All I’m saying is that, after a year of phone voting scandals, the Deloitte report into ITV PRTS failures and no-one from ITV getting the sack for the wilful editorial negligence it exposed, when phone voting comes into play my immediate thoughts these days turn to thinking that the result may be fixed.
That’s the sad legacy of all these scandals. Where once we’d take it on trust that everything was above board, now the default position has become that we don’t believe that it is so. And that legacy will taint every single winner chosen by premium rate voting until the broadcasters can find ways to regain the trust of the viewers.
Oh that was scary - just logged on and got the closed message but no link - was panicking thinking Scott had fibnally got fed up of us for good. Then refreshed the page and there was the link - phew - thanks Scott - will now go back and read your article.