I think Zoe would have been in the dance-off had she been bottom of the leaderboard, because she is not popular. Every week on the VT she is shown talking about how hard she is finding the latest dance, and it puts people off. There are some people who vote for people simply because they are at the bottom, but I think most people who vote for those in the bottom half are voting on personality, and Zoe wouldn't have picked up many personality votes, even if she was at the bottom.

The problem people seem to have with the current system is that people vote based on reasons other than dancing ability. Your proposal does nothing to change that. People would be voting for their least favourite instead of their favourite, but there's no reason that they would choose their least favourite based on dance reasons.

How about:

» The public only votes for the 6 couples with the lowest judges' scores.

» When we get down to 8 couples, then the public votes for the 4 couples with the lowest judges' scores.

» When we get to the last 5 couples, the public votes for whoever they want.

Or something along those lines, anyway.

Whichever way they do it, some people will still be unhappy with the results.

Every year, better dancers have been voted off before weaker dancers - that`s the type of show it is especially when public voting is involved.

Just enjoy it for what it is - a good entertainment show

Not necessarily simple but...

1. Dance followed by paddle (as now).
2. After all the dances, each judge, in respect of each score that they've awarded to more than one couple, has to rank those couple from best to worst (not as now and quite possibly very entertaining as judges are reminded that they gave six couples with wide-ranging performances the same score).
3. The judges scores become a ranked score. So each judge, including Len, will have awarded one couple a single point and each judge, including Craig, will have awarded one couple ten points.
4. It is the judges ranked scores that are collated and combined with the public vote.

Feasible?

The judges requested the "dance off" a couple of series ago to try to regain some power of who stays and who goes. Alas it has massively backfired on them.

Over on X factor they have "deadlock" if the judges can't decide - that takes it back to the public vote - and they too have four judges. Perhaps that is the way to go rather than Len having in effect two votes.

The judges seem to forget that this is an entertainment show for the "public" not a serious dance competition. Yes it is great to see good dancing - but it is equally entertaining to see the "triers" and the "hapless" at least "having a go" It would be an incredibly boring show and I suspect have a much more limited audience without the less able taking part. (and "come dancing" had the plug pulled on it)

It IS an ENTERTAINMENT show - judges you would do well to remember this and stop having a go at the public if they don't vote for your personal favourites

Exactly!
As I've said before if it was dancing alone, at least this year, then we might as well dished the winner's trophy out in the first week and everyone else gone home!
If I wanted to see professional dancers then I'd go do just that.
I don't know why it still comes as a surprise to them that the less able dancers do well in terms of voting, surely they know this by now?!

Even without the public vote, not everyone will be happy. Think of Torvill and Dean in the 1994 Winter Olympics. No phone vote involved yet the UK ice dancing viewing public - all 20+ million of them - were outraged. I guess the many more millions in Russia were quite happy though.

In life, there are winners and losers. Losers, and their supporters, are genetically programmed to be unhappy about it. Some deal with this unhappiness better than others, but unhappy they all are.

Not en masse, no. But each week, then the voting will get skewed (just as it does now). The result being that the better dancers would tend to end up close to the middle or bottom. And if there was a concerted effort as the competitors reduced, the ability to eject a good dancer increases as support grows behind a less-talented dancer.

Very true.

I don't think there can ever be a voting system that will be seen as fair to everyone. The closest you'd get was if every couple performed the same dance to the same music and then at the end an anonymous panel of competition dance judges ranked the couples in order. Unfortunately it would also be pretty poor television.

Although the new scoring system compresses the difference between first and last in the event of ties, there is the argument that it can better reflect the actual scores (it still doesn't do it very well mind you...). Does someone who scored 37 actually merit potentially getting say twelve times as many points as someone who scored 20? However in the same way does the most popular couple with the public really deserve say twelve times the points of the least popular, unless they really are twelve times more popular? And in both cases six weeks later the same number of points and votes would only produce say six times the number of points, when arguably as the competition progresses a gulf that wide should if anything be penalised not rewarded.

The problem, if there is perceived to be a problem, is that combining two first to last rankings is always going to produce anomalies.

There is something to be said for the points from the judges to better reflect their relative scores, and the points from the public to better reflect the proportion of the votes they get. However there is still the problem that the judges scores would be an attempt to rate all the couples against each other, whereas the public votes are for single couples.

Well they could solve that by giving them points of 100 for first place down to maybe 90 points for last place with the judges, and the same for the public vote.

It's fine as it is. The judges get to protect at least one of the favourite dancers. The public get to vote for their favourite. If there was no question that those dancers higher on the leaderboard could go out then the show would be very boring. Would people prefer the public to have no say at all? Zoe was never going to win anyway and her samba was too basic, boring and overmarked.
If the audience can't choose who gets to stay in, people wouldn't want to watch. It's an entertainment show, not a real competition and no one couple is more deserving than any other.

This should be an option.

Actually, I think if you could have both options - one number to save a couple, another to send them home, the people could vote for their favourite and vote off the one they like the least.

All of the above is moot however - until such time that the voting period is extended beyond the stupid 15 minutes.

Or give them the ability to give fractions of scores as well.

Craig has said in the past he 'rounds up' or 'rounds down' his score ... so on that to him is slightly better than a 6 but not near a 7 gets a 6 - having a 6.5 paddle gives a bit more chance to seperate the couples at the actual point of scoring.

From talking to just casual viewers, who just watch the show with none of the t'internet twiddly bits it's the comments and scores they remember - not the leader board positions.

I think making it so you can only vote for half the couples will just make the leaderboard a battlefield. Add to that the fact that sometimes it doesn't matter how well a celeb dances if they just don't gel with the voters they just don't gel and having them 'out of reach' will just make it worse.

I think voting for the person you want to leave would probably be a good idea. It is often more clear cut who are the worst dancers - e.g. Jo W, Joe K and Craig in this series than the better ones.
I have many favourites on SCD at the moment - Ricky W for the technically good dances and Ricky G and Chris for the entertainment value. However I would not be willing to vote for all of them to be kept in. If there is someone who is obviously worse than the rest of them, I would be more likely to vote them out.
I think, in a way, more people would be likely to vote the worst dancers out than to keep the best ones in.

If you remember back to the first couple of Big Brother series, their original voting was for who you wanted to leave - cue lots of voting scams, people sending fake emails around to phone to save one person, when you were in fact voting to kick out someone else. I know that the current voting system would preclude this type of long term system, but if you're voting to get rid of someone, people will always try to do something to fix the voting more than they would the other way round I think.


The problem with this would be that the judges would then overmark their favourites to keep them at the top of the leaderboard, and underscore anyone else they didn't like.

Not that I can think of an alternative myself. Unless you weight the judges votes and public votes differently (ie 70% judges, 30% public), I don't think there's a better system.

I think it's about right as it is

The dance off has skewed things enough, anyway, so that now it's not enough to keep the bottom 1 out the danger zone, it has extended to the bottom 2.

The judges already have a bigger say in who goes than the public anyway ... they score and arrange the leader board. The public votes and ammends it as they see fit. The judges then get to save one of those 2 - which gives them an added power that people are only just getting comfy with!

Changing the vote from a positive 'save' to a negative 'evict' would change the whole tone of the show.

To my mind, the simplest way to make it fair would be for the Judges' comments to be reflected in their marks.

All credit to Ian the other week for voicing it without any ranting or hissy fit (unlike someone else we know ).

To severely criticise a couple and then give inflated marks or in fact vice versa, sends out the wrong vibe to the viewers - they end up voting for the ones treated harshly because that is what sticks in their minds and leaving out the ones who were 'purred' over.

That plus what has been said already - the GBP do not realise that top of the leaderboard is just as precarious as anywhere else with the new system - by the by, was that ever explained fully to the viewers?

I'd like the judges to use their whole range of marks. Only Craig really does that at the moment. Has Len ever given less than a 5?

I'd also prefer it if the public vote counted for less of the overall score: 60/40 to the judges, say, instead of 50/50.

It is fair now! Judges can vote for who they want to stay and we canvote for who we want to stay.

What happens in reality is, many people who want to see those at the top of the leaderboard stay don't bother because they think they are safe and don't want to spend any money. This gives the impression that the system is unfair when, in fact, its not the system at all.

If we vote for who we want to leave then non popular personalities at the top of the scoreboard would still go! People like Zoe would have just as little chance of staying under a negative system.

The only way you can be sure the best dancer always gets through is if there is no public vote - then the show won't last more than 5 minutes in it's Saturday slot - it'll end up at somewhen late on a minor channel. Without the public vote we can almost say on week one who will win - what fun is there in that? What motivation would there be for anyone other than Ricky W and Ali putting anything other than a few hours into training each week? It would lead to a poorer show, not a better one.

Perhaps it might be simpler if the judges only give comments after each performance and then score after all the couples have danced.

If the judges used all their scores then they would be less likely to tie in the first place.

Very few scores are more than 20 apart - 15-35 in early weeks and 20 - 40 in later ones. When you have so many couples ties are very very likely.

Len starts at a 6,Bruno and Alesha about a 5. Only Craig uses the full set. That's what it needs - others to use the full range and help avoid ties.

How many years are we going to have the same blooming discussion.

They tell the viewers to vote for their favourites. Not the best dancers. So tough nuggies on them if they don't like the result.

They have already taken it out of the viewers hands by introducing the dance off.