I would love it if bbc released the voting figures as they are unwilling to. Going to see if I can e-mail that suggestion and see if bbc can override the stupid ofcom regulations of not releasing how popular the contestants are and were. Come on bbc live in todays era and not the past, please.

Yes I agree. I am sure lots of people would like to know the voting figures. They have released them for IACGMOOH so why not for Strictly. Have the BBC got something to hide one asks once self?

I can understand why they don't release them during the programme, but once it's over, there's no reason to keep it a secret. They need to release the figures otherwise it could appear as though they were trying to hide something.

Series six would be the ones I would really like to see.

I think for at least the last 3 years, various FMs have emailed the beeb for the figures and have bene told they won't release them. i do udnerstand why they would not release the current series figures but I don't understand why the ones form series that are done and dusted are some kind of state secret!

Doubt it'll happen.

I've always thought that the reason they haven't ever released the voting figures is due to the more complex nature of the scoring system. On X Factor or I'm a Celebrity, it's just a simple case of who gets the most/least votes. On Strictly it works differently as in it's 50/50 with the judges scores. This leaves room for the possibility that someone topping the public vote could still end up leaving anyway (especially back in the dance off days) and I actually believe this has happened on occasion. How would that go down with the publc if they discovered that the favourite in the vote had gone anyway. No wonder they keep the results under wraps.

Could it possibly be that the voting figures are actually not as high as we are led to believe?
That SCD may have millions of viewers there seems to be no doubt, but they don't all vote; and maybe it's just a few tens of thousands who do.

Especially now with the short voting time. However I don't think it matters all that much to be honest. The BBC don't make any profit on the phone votes so they wouldn't be too fussed.

Up to the stupid producers I'm afraid.

Someone has not only put in a Freedom of Information request which the BBC turned down but they have also complained about the BBC decision to not give out the information on the basis of this request, the BBC's decision was upheld

http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documen...s_50231775.pdf

I generally can't be doing with conspiracy theories about tv show voting, but I do wonder why they don't just tell us. Although it could be something as simple as they put in the celebrities contracts that they won't release the figures as a way of ensuring they know their egos will be protected so if they did release the information they'd be breaking those contracts.

ITV also release figures for Dancing On Ice which works very similarly to SCD so I don't think this is relevant. DOI have always had a Skate Off too right since the 1st series.

I can't believe it's anything to do with the celeb egos thing either. I mean even without the figures we all know that Tina & Jimi weren't that popular with the public for them to have left when they did.

I personally can't understand the rationale myself especially as the BBC has released the figures for Sports Personality Of The Year voting for the last few years.

That's interesting, I didn't realise that.

Seems a bit like double standards.

And this year SPOTY is the same weekend as the Strictly final so it will definitely stand out a bit more if they release figures for 1& not the other.

The reason for not releasing the voting figures has always been given by the BBC as being that it's "sensitive information" which might be of use to a competitor.

Privately, I'd guess one of the reasons, is that comparatively so few people actually vote. I've watched pretty much every programme and have never voted once, it's just a Saturday night entertainment show.

I'd also hazard a guess that a large proportion of viewers feel much the same too.

Oops, I misunderstood the thread, I thought we were talking about percentages

If a celeb is doing SCD in order to raise their profile, going on Strictly could do more damage than good if voting figures show they werent popular with the general public.

As it is, potentially unpopular contestants can go quite far on judges scores alone; they get a lot of prime tellie time. If voting figures were released, we may not get the same calibre of contestants...

...OK that last bit was tongue firmly in cheek - there seems to be a rather large queue of celebs willing to sign up for any or all "reality" shows, even those that do publish voting figures. But my initial point still demonstrates why keeping figures secret has some validity.

Either way I am not that bothered. I think voting figures are one of those topics that are potentially more interesting for being unknown

You confirm my suspicions:-
Viewers - lots
Opinions - even more
Message posters - small percentage
Actual voters - very few

Actual figures or percentages, they won't release them, this topic comes up every year "about now."

Vote counts must be released to the telecom regulator. After all the voting scandals of the last few years they wouldn't get away with less. At least now there is an idea that the dance matters if you cannot vote until the dances are complete. In early series celebs were able to pile up votes in the week before anyone performed, a simple popularity contest.

The BBC don't release figures on any other entertainment show such as the annual 'Andrew Lloyd Webber in need' events. Does Sports Personality release actual numbers? Different department, different rules. Other shows (ITV Celebrity) release percentages, not absolute numbers. US Dancing with the Stars scores differently based on percentages of judges votes plus percentage audience votes , I have not seen any actual numbers.

Why would the results not be released? After all, the BBC must be playing by the published rules or the telecom regulator would penalise them. You'd have to consider from the producer point of view. It could be to spare blushes as already suggested. it could be to prevent challenges if there are only a couple of votes in it and someone claims "I couldn't get through". It discourages multiple votes if you get no feedback that, for instance another 20 votes would have swung it - I don't recall if multiple votes have ever been confirmed as effective anyway. If there is any hint of rigged voting, or concerted campaigns they won't show up so organisers cannot know if they were successful so they are less likely to be attempted. There may be occasional counter measures, for instance suspicious patterns that mean they resort to eliminating multiple votes, or even all votes from some phone numbers - showing the numbers would mean you might deduce what you can get away with. It stops a whole industry of poll watchers speculating in the tabloids and elsewhere, see the general election to see what can be done with a swingometer.

Personally, I'd like to see the numbers but the producers think they have valid reasons to hide them even if we disagree. It's not going to happen. In the meantime it can be entertaining (for a logic/number nerd) working out who is getting the votes, I found this site looking for anyone else interested in the logic. As argued elsewhere and by others, Pamela is not getting votes, Matt clearly is. The Kara vote is growing, the Scott vote is falling, Gareth has had votes to save him when threatened, but was that a 'not widdy' vote that will disappear?

Great post alan.

You have exemplified why unknown percentages can, in effect, be more interesting than known ones. You have given us some real food for thought; I really enjoyed reading your post

The ALW shows have a directly related output - so you have to ask whether the intent to help the resulting show and the people taking part is appropriate or not. If it is, do you want the world to know that someone auditioning for a singing role next week only got 2% support or that Danielle who won the last series had, say, 90% of the public voting for someone else one week?


DOI and IAC throw up the problem that a lot of people only get 2-10% of the vote. Do you want your celebs to be seen as unpopular ? Do you have to pay them ITV pay rates to take the risk? Do you want the world to know that your equivalent of Stacey had 50% of the vote plus from week one and the competition struggled on 10-20 %? ITV doesn't have to justify its shows on wider grounds, but how does the BBC justify a dancing show if the polls show the top 3 dancers can't get as many votes as some comedy act?

Exactly. The best argument they have for not releasing the figures is that the contestants have to continue their professional lives next day, next month, next year. 'Sparing their blushes', as I termed it has professional consequences if they are dependent on popularity. There are plenty of producers, from soaps to pantos, even shows that use sporting pundiits who would find a tiny percentage against any name and turn the page whatever they thought personally.

Very good point about a clear leader too. If any very popular contestant went through the early weeks with a massive lead, voting for anybody else at that point was clearly a waste of time and cash. I can't see how they could muster enough votes at some later point in the series to catch up if everyone has stopped voting.

As an example take the Ann vote. It was obviously fairly high because she was escaping the bottom two every week from the beginning. Would many long standing fans have continued voting or even watching if she was getting more than half the public vote and in danger of winning? Without that certainty there was no proof of the size of faction voting for Ann whatever she did and a reduced reason to grow one. Was there ever a danger of her getting much further than she did? Admittedly with some hindsight, I don't think there was. She was a politician not a journalist like John Sergeant. As the voting numbers rise a politician is always going to be handicapped by having as many vote against as for them.

Well the 'leaked' voting figures from a couple of series ago (series 6) suggested it was around 2.5 - 3 million (with John Sergent picking up about 50%) and that was relatively early in the series. Of course we don't know how accurate this leak was though.

That would seem to me to be a very high percentage of watching viewers.
I could understand it if it was in the CIN years when you could start voting for next week's winner immediately after this week's show.

But if it were true it would surprise me.
I've watched pretty much every show of every series, but never voted once.I also think as the years go by, many viewers who still watch will stop voting as they don't like what seems like to them to be "manipulation" by the BBC.

What has been published is that series 5 raised 'over a million' for Children in Need at 12.5p per phone call. That's at least 8 million calls for the series as a whole.

With 12 voting rounds that series an average would be 6-7 hundred thousand. The usual suspicion is that finals get far more, so the early rounds must get fewer. The very early rounds may get a few more because of the novelty of a new series and the potential for people to vote until their favourite leaves. Since series five, after the whole phone voting policy was revised, the BBC cannot raise money for anything not directly connected to the show; strange logic since they're now raising cash for BT but there you are.

Are there fewer votes now because it's not raising charity cash? Or more votes because it's cheaper (15p against 25p)? Fewer because voters don't like all the cash going to a commercial enterprise? More votes some years because someone is particularly popular? Series 5 was the Alesha win, is that going to be more or less popular than the year following?

I suspect it's fewer overall now because of the lost charity connection, it was pushed quite hard at the time. Otherwise I don't see why the numbers and voting pattern should not be much the same each year. A total of 8 million is not going to see early rounds in any series with 2.5 to 3 million, more likely a tenth of that. Split 14 ways, that would make the average haul around twenty thousand; anyone exiting before the half way stage probably gets under ten thousand.