Well, that's almost true. In a three couples standard final, the public will be guaranteed to get their favourite to the final. It's not true when the final is only two couples, cos the judges get two bites at the cherry in a three-person semi.

What the rules do now is just not make it impossible for the third placed judges contestant to avoid a dance-off. They can mathematically avoid the dance-off. But that's not quite the same thing as saying if the public give them 90%+ of votes they'll be in the final. The judges can still vote their leaderboard in such a way that the public vote counts for nothing, and the public favourite gets kicked by them in a dance-off.

I'm beginning to think that this thread is reminiscent of Lord Haw Haw in WW2.

"Indigo calling, Indigo calling; your man is surrounded by superior dancers - give up now before he is totally humiliated."

But this is what happened last year.

We had a potential two person final. It was not possiblefor the public to save one person from the dance off and so there was, understandably, uproar.

I quite agree a judges fave will be there too and I cannot ever see it being Laila and Chris, for that reason. However, if either are topping the public vote I cannot see under the 'new clean honest 2009 BBC scoring system' that the top scoring celeb (whomever it is) won't get through.

Yes, the judges get two chances so it is tough. This popular person is going to have to top the public vote every week now unless they are high on the score board.

I've not done any maths just taken the simple fact that the BBC have changed things with professional advice to ensure the public can influence the dance off. If a situation reoccurs where the judges have scored and the public vote means nothing that is exactly the same as the Votegate position last year. I can understand the BBC getting it wrong again as they are rubbish at forseeing things, but not if they have had professional advice.

That's only if you look at the thread in terms of the personalities. For those concerned about the show's future ratings and survival, the debate works better if you just make the three semi-finalists X, Y and Z.

If Z's most popular with your audience, it's not a good idea to leave a system in place where Z doesn't make the final, unless you seriously want to rebrand the concept behind your show in future years.

Okay I'm feeling a bit thick here because based on what we know so far - i.e. it looks like Chris is at the top of the public vote and Ricky is at the bottom - I think Chris has a decent chance of making a two couple final.

If Chris is at the top of the public vote and Ricky is at the bottom, surely some of the most likely outcomes will be -

Ricky & Natalie 3 + 1 = 4 points
Ali & Brian 2 + 2 = 4 points
Chris & Ola 1 + 3 = 4 point
- so the dance off will be between Ricky & Ali because the public vote will prevail and Chris will be in the final.

or

Ricky & Natalie 3 + 1 = 4 points
Ali & Brian 3 + 2 = 5 points
Chris & Ola 2 + 3 = 5 points
- so the dance off will be between Ricky & Ali because the public vote will prevail and Chris will be in the final.


Ali & Brian 3 + 2 = 5 points
Ricky & Natalie 3 + 1 = 4 points
Chris & Ola 2 + 3 = 5 point
- so the dance off will be between Ricky & Ali because the public vote will prevail and Chris will be in the final.

It is late so please tell me what am I missing here?

Here's the maths for you where public favourite gets kicked out in a three person semi:

JUDGES TABLE
X - 3
Y - 2
Z - 1

PUBLIC VOTE
Z - 3
X - 2
Y - 1

Totals:
X = 3 + 2 = 5
Y = 2 + 1 = 3
Z = 1 + 3 = 4

X automatically goes to the final. DO is Y vs Z. Z tops the public vote - judges kick out Z in the dance-off. Public favourite is gone.

That's as impartial as I can do it. :=D

If the 3rd place couple in the semi final gets 90% of the public vote then they will be in the final without being in the dance off regardless of what the judges have done in the competition.

If the semi final is Chris, Ali and Ricky then it is more likely than not that Chris will be 3rd on the leaderboard because he is the weakest dancer of those 3. Would you prefer that the judges do not score based on ability?

Depending on the judges and the publice the permutations can put any one of three in the dance off.
i.e. X+Y. X+Z. Y+Z.

Nothing is certain.

Of course, this assumes that Z and Y dance the same in the dance off as in the main competition. Z and Y being in the dance off by itself doesn't mean that the judges kick out Z - just look at Phil Tuffnell vs Ricky Groves.

Yes, I can see that now. Thanks.

I'm thinking of what was said re:Tom. Of course there was *no way* he could be saved from the DO whereas in your situation had the public votes been mixed differently then, yes, the public can technically influence the dance off.

Iam with you now.

Saying the judges can ensure the result they want assumes they know the public voting order though, and that's not necessarily going to be the case with a quarter and a semi where new voters come out of the woodwork - especially if someone pulls a performance like Ramps' Argentine Tango out of the hat. There is also less likely to be colusion on scores with Darcey Bussell involved. I am damn sure she will vote exactly the way she feels. I also think she is likely to have an influence on floating voters of which there are many at these later stages. We've all got pretty used to taking some of the judges with a pinch of salt but I don't think we'll feel the same about her.

Of course, nothing is certain. That's why the rules were changed to avoid the situation of last year where Tom mathematically couldn't avoid a dance-off. If the judges leaderboard turns out right, there IS a mathematical chance that the public favourite can avoid a dance-off.

I think the point of this thread though is that, as can be seen by some posts, a lot of the audience are under the impression that whoever tops the public vote will make the final. They just assume that it must be so, cos it's such an obvious idea to them ... cos that's the concept of the show. The system when you drop to a two couple final, and a three couple semi, means though that you can get 99% of the public vote and still not make the final.

The summary being, the scoring system is mathematically all fair and square and above board. But from a production POV, leaving in place a situation where there's ANY possibility that your audience favourite doesn't make your final is a total disaster for the concept on which your show and its ratings are built.

So can some tell me what I am missing as I asked nicely in my post #105?

There are lots of permutations possible - you're right.

What production should be worried about is that more than one of those permutations can see their audience favourite not make the final. They should have created a system where there is NO permutation where audience favourite doesn't make the final. They have that in the case of a four-person semi ... but not when it drops to three in the semi. Things go wrong for them in the way the judges score the semi and a few people are gonna be on the way to producing for BBC4 rather than primetime Saturday night BBC1.

That's fine then as I understand the scenarios - I thought I was going mad!

So you don't think that Gethin won the vote in series 5 then? He was the only semi finalist never to have been in a dance off. I'm not trying to advance the cause one way or the other here - just curious.

Also, although there was that almighty cock up with the judges scores last year, it was quite clear that the judges wished to score Rachel and Lisa ahead of Tom. Had they not tied the score, it's quite possible he may have gone out despite being the public's favourite. Do you think the tied score and the ensuing debacle was deliberate to get Tom through or do you think the producers hadn't thought that one out properly? Again, I'm not suggesting anything - just interested.

Which is why we have got to do something now - drive the point home to the Beeb that if they don't make it a three couple final it is a pointless viewer vote as the judges will decide the finalists.

If necessary we tell the that unless it is a three couple final and made clear that is the case we will get OFCOM involved

Couple A : 4(judges) + 2 (public) = 6
Couple B : 3 (judges) + 3 (public) = 6
Couple C : 2 (judges) + 1 (public) = 3
Couple D : 1 (judges) + 4 (public) = 5

C vs D in the dance-off : D goes home.

I honestly don't know the numbers on that. But since that was a year where production were blessed with big 'crossover' contestants - by that I mean people who both the purists and the public like - I'd guess it would have been a close call and fluid public vote from week to week. Just my guess. I get the feeling that both Alesha and Matt Di Angelo had strong public followings. Even with a two couple final, I doubt that was a year that caused many sleepless nights on the production side. I'd be surprised if there was one clear public favourite week to week, but three or so very strong camps of support.


I think they hadn't thought it out properly and were just merrily moving on through. I think they would have realised the error of their ways and done the same thing to the rules for future years even if Tom hadn't topped the public vote btw, once they realised what the judges making first and second tied did ... but I'm sure as hell Tom topping the public vote added an extra sense of panic to the equation on the night.

The changes they made to the rules for this year must have looked great from a production POV. Effectively giving the judges two picks for a final does add more dancing credibility to the final. The public do still 'almost always' (EDIT - after Monkseal's maths) get to have their favourite in the final too. Everybody's happy. I'm sure the meeting went real well that decided it. Problem is, again they didn't examine all scenarios. Their new 'everybody happy' system only works if the final is three couples. Drop to two and suddenly you got the problem that your audience favourite has the possibility to get the semi-final chop ... omg, the judges got too much potential power suddenly again. ^^

Maybe again, they'll just try to wing it and come up with something on the fly if worst case scenario materialises ... eg, announcing cos it's only two couples in final, we've decided no DO for semi and top combined judges/public score goes through. Or maybe, they'll just let what will be, be ... even if their worst case scenario emerges.

Wouldn't envy them their jobs in future years if they do though. A primetime reality TV show built on public involvement where the public can reach the conclusion it's not worth voting cos you might not even get your favourite to the final will certainly have its work cut out.

Good spot. That's possible ... and is equally stupid to allow. With four in a semi, you'd probably get away with it easier though cos folks say we still got B who we like quite a lot. But potentially just as dumb from a ratings POV in some disaster year if D was your only really liked contestant with the audience.

Ah, so you reckon it's not a problem if the public's favourite on the night (or even over the whole/most of the series) goes out before the final provided that the voting is reasonably close. I think there's a good chance that Gethin did top the vote on the semi final night and quite possibly finished ahead of the others most other weeks too, but I agree that Alesha and Matt also probably had good banks of support so the production team wouldn't have been too disheartened with the (more marginal) favourite going out as they were still pretty much guaranteed a decent final audience/vote whatever the result.

I'd guess the problem would arise if (as has been rumoured) Chris is significantly ahead in the public vote and those behind him are less than popular. That was probably the case with Tom last year and, in that respect, the tied vote may well have been a blessing in disguise (if what you say about production values is true) because it meant that they had to guarantee Tom a place in the final whereas he wouldn't have had that (given the standard of his dancing on the night) if the scores hadn't been tied.

Interesting.

Can someone please send this thread to the bbc strictly twitter feed

Pretty much that, yep. I think the nature of the show means that the public are generally accepting that lots of weeks someone who came higher in the public vote will get the chop in the dance-off. They might be miffed as the weeks go by if it's the person they were supporting, but they're generally ok with 'someone' the public support being carried through. By the end, you're supposed under the new system to get down to that Highlanderesque 'there can be only one' scenario. The public accept the judges can have two picks - a lot of years those two might also be the public's favourite too. No problem those years. But if they don't happen to be, the public want that one who is pitched as being theirs to choose, regardless of what the judges think.



I don't honestly know what the numbers are on Chris, but the impression and indications are he has much more public support. Let's just assume he does for argument's sake. He could easily lose a large chunk of that if he made a final, with some people deciding effectively 'OK, we got them all the way, now let's vote on dancing alone and make someone else the winner'. I don't think the audience is necessarily so rigid as to think the public favourite all the way through must win, just that it wants what it sees as part of the deal that it can get at least one person (regardless of what the judges think) to the final. It's enough ... the public involvement contract has been honoured. Folks were promised they had influence and they did. There's still a viable reason to feel it's worth voting in future. I think they'd like that to be the person who tops the public poll most later weeks, but they'll probably settle just as happily for someone who is a not too distant second or third on the public poll. The criteria for that person is more that it's someone the judges wouldn't have saved if they were given an option to kick them.

Your scenario of someone being way ahead of everybody else is the real disaster lying in wait ... and, as Monkseal bothered to do the maths better than me, there is even a small mathematical possibility that person could still get kicked in a 4 couples semi. If you don't devise a system to prevent a scenario like that, you're relying on luck alone to protect you from serious ratings problems. If you play public involvement TV, people expect something for their pennies. You don't have to give them a whole loaf, but you sure as hell better make sure you give them at least a crumb. Take that away and future ratings game over.

I shall continue to vote for Chris and Ola regardless as I think they do stand a reasonable chance of winning also they have entertained and I've really enjoyed watching them.
To be perfectly honest if it was a Ricky and Ali final viewing figures would diminish,they've had weeks now to try and transfer some personality on to the dance floor ,but it's just not happened and their performances are dull...let's face it I'm not the only one with that view,we all read the forums.
Chris and Ola's charleston on Saturday was brilliant it epitomised the essence of what Strictly is all about.

Ellie

They don't - who escapes the dance off is decided by the order of the public vote relative to judges vote. Unless the best dancers are in a particular order with both judges and public and the votes are fixed and known, who goes through can't be decided by the judges. They don't know whether Ali will have more votes than Ricky or less and making the wrong one top has the opposite effect to that they would want. They also can't do much if its clear that one of Ali and Ricky does best. Its as likely that they will get it wrong as right and that the best dancer will lose to the worst in the final as that the two best dancers will have a really tight contest.

In an ideal world the dancers would solve it because one would do better and the votes would follow but the votes are based on all sorts of unrelated factors so the result can be perfectly random.

There's no way if they don't say how anyone knows who the audience favourite was. No way either of knowing now if Chris is far ahead or ahead at all. Actually its not even the audience favourite but the one with most votes from the small minority of more determined people who find a reason (any reason) to vote. its entirely possible that on finals night most viewers will be sitting there wondering why on earth they are watching a joke candidate up against a really skilled one. There's also no knowing whether many people care if certain people go - they must just think that they have reached their sell by date just as Jo, Joe and Craig did. The vote past midway on SCD had JS well ahead, on X factor it was Eoghan and on Dancing on ice the worst dancers also had 40% - it had no consequence when all of them went.

The rules are the same throughout. Its entirely possible that someone leading the polls can go any week. It can happen in the SF too but only if you are the worst performer there. Thats because you need to perform relatively well too. Not being the worst seems a reasonable requirement to be assured of staying.

The whole point of the dance off was to stop the public vote alone determining both finalists because they had the experience of one sided finals that were terrible and finals where the best dancers didn't get into the final. The idea that popularity alone should get you to the final where it will probably carry you to the win is just a recipe for a pointless final and if you don't win it just highlights that the votes that got you there meant not a lot.