So Simon cast the deciding vote on Sunday

Amanda did it on Monday

And Piers tonight

Who's turn next?

I assume this is deliberate to give an air of credence to the Cowell backed voting process?


Simons Got Britain Hooked...

It's rather disturbing that more people probably voted for an overweight Greek doing a comedy dance than will in the upcoming elections...hey ho

The panel decide before it's announced who is 2/3, the rest is all done for drama...

Yup, I have a feeling that too.

As A&D were about to announce the results you could see one of the production staff talking to the judges. I presume they were asking what their decision would be and then deciding which order to go to them. It's all about making good TV!

I finally saw that production guy talking to the judges this evening.

I'm surprised it's taken you that long to realise.

It's as staged as WWE, I just watch it for the acts now.

It hasn't taken me that long to realise it! I was only pointing out what happened.
I think the x factor system works better. 4 judges can mean a tie and the public vote decides it.

The producer tells Simon the result and presumably the judges organise themselves from there, it's not a complicated task. Piers Morgan wrote in his column that in series 1, just before the result was announced Simon told him and Amanda that Connie had won by a landslide to wind them up.


Though they'll probably only tie it if they don't care about the act that comes bottom of the public vote.

I think yesterday's semi's showed it up a bit, when Dec hesitated about which judge to go to during the Shaun v Gareth judges vote, and Piers had to speak up.

Also, I think it was on Monday's show ... Ant hestitated before going to the second judge and you could see he was waiting to be told in his ear peice who to go to ... there was about 5seconds hesitation ... then he said the judges name ...

It's all worked out and staged ... one votes X, one votes Y and one has a decider ... and they even manage to work it so that a different judge has the decider each night ... what a co-incidence!

Ahhhhh what wouldn't give for Stone Cold to drop a stone cold stunner on Simon Cowell that would make really good viewing

The whole thing is a stage managed sham. Remember when Cowell stopped Shaheen in mid flight on his first song? Shaheen then miraculously chose another song that the band had music arranged for and sailed through the audition (quite rightly so, the lad is good).
Cowell then gets the credit for the whole "its the song choice thing".
This programme stinks

That annoyed me too, his voice was good enough to not need the little drama at the beginning. It was such a set-up.

the music was on a backing track there was no band

I agree about that.

There's been loads of examples throughout the show where it's been totally staged. The judges are appalling actors. The first example being the whole setup surrounding Susan Boyle's audition and the mock shock horror look on Amanda Holden's face as she started singing. And also the camera panning to Ant and Dec throughout and their comments. It's all done for effect and drama and totally orchestrated.

So they just happened to have that exact track on hand at that particular second ready to play

Surprised it's taken this long to notice.

They're seeding acts, putting through who they want anyway, editing auditions and cut scenes, it's blatantly set up to make you believe something or to make people vote for certain acts.

Not once has Shaheen's background been mentioned, they are making him look like a normal 12 year old boy who sits in school dreaming of singing on stage, well, maybe he does dream about it but he also does it an awful lot and he has been at stage school since he was 5 and has TV credits. Fair play he's bloody good but you expect that.

They also hid the fact Susan Boyle had made recordings years ago. It was never mentioned Charlie Green was a touring singer (or who his dad was). It was never mentioned Faryl had won awards at Llangollen. It was never mentioned George went to stage school (it looked like he busked on the street to pay for his audition because they were so skint they couldn't afford it... whilst they were probably not affluent, that probably is over egging it). They didn't mention Andrew Johnston was a head chorister at a top cathedral (and over-egged his bullying).

Basically, they will hide certain things so they can portray something in a certain way, it sucks, they should be honest about the acts. To be fair it happens way too often to blame the individuals, and we don't know how edited it is.

The only thing we can really take at face value is the live performances, and even then, they could be fiddling balances with the singers/backing tracks.

Er, yeah.

They take a list of songs they can sing and BGT pick one.

Andrew Muir said so last year, he didn't want to sing Imagine but they made him and he confronted the judges when they criticised him saying he wanted to sing something different and they were like "it's on your list".

It was a set up and the kid and his mum were in on it. But when he's relying on the judges putting him through, then you do it. There's also the fact that they already auditioned him and the auditions are edited for drama anyway.

ive also heard shaheen will be singing his audition song for the final

wot a coincidence

i expect susan to do the same

Three of last year's finalists did either their audition piece (Andrew Johnston and Faryl) or their semi final piece (George) in the final.

Again, we know they don't necessarily have full weight in picking it.

He can sing it well anyway...

The whole thing is even more stage managed than that .. i would have thought people would pick up on Simon Cowell blatently reading his comments from a script sometimes .. he's even held it up in full view of camera as he reads before. I think their comments are written in the rehearsals.

singers will usually have more than one backing track to sing with especially a professional like Shareen - there could have be rights issues with one of his songs so anyone who had been to an audition before would know to have a couple of songs ready

It's pretty blatantly all staged, the vote is probably not, but the stories are egged up to manipulate that anyway, so it's meaningless as a contest. I just watch it for the acts, the finalists are probably pre-determined before we even see the auditions on TV and they probably already chose their winner.

If you look at it last year everyone was all on about Faryl, Andrew or Signature winning but the stage was set for George if you look back - he was there last year, they didn't put him through and they felt guilty about it, he comes back and they feel like they have to make amends for it... it's a story. Plus all the stuff about him break dancing in the street to raise money, the stuff about his mum being poor, his spine condition, it's all sympathy to manipulate the public into voting for him, same as Andrew and the poor bullied child line, they're doing the same thing with Susan Boyle and hiding bits of Shaheen's past.

None of these Cowell Production RTV series are anything close to being a genuine "talent show" (in respect to plucking a bona fide unknown from the streets). All the GOOD acts will have been head hunted from various sources and the bits we actually get to see on telly are the result of a hugely orchestrated campaign - several auditions, screen tests, interviews yaddayaddayadda. No-one we see on our screens hasnt been seived through several layers of "audtions" already.

The large majority of the GBP are happy to go along with the charade - even myself (although Im more of an X-Factor fan, BGT leaves me stone cold) - I know its all staged, but do find it shamefully entertaining .

You dont have to look very deeply to find the cracks in the armour though - the "fake" surprise, the amazingly co-incidental ready to go second song, scripted comments etc). Things is most of us dont care really do we? If we analyse it too much then it loses what it is - Prime Time telly for the masses (albeit huge cash cow for Syco). Reality talent shows are , at the end of the day, entertainment. Its the job of the producers to create drama, tension, comedy and surprise with the aim of getting the show talked about the next day. They couldnt do this unless they had COMPLETE control of the acts - NOTHING about BGT / X-Factor is left to chance.

I hate it that they repeat their performances - I want to see three different things - surely that's not too difficult?

Perhaps for things like Gin the dog and the complicated dance routes but for a singer it can't be that hard to learn three songs can it? They never sing a whole song anyway do they? It's always a condensed version or something?!

I want my money back if it's repeats again!