would make a nice change

No. Knowing the results before they are revealed at the end of the series would ruin the excitement.

if people knew percentages then they could easily manipulate that for betting purposes

Noooooo Lol ,if he did that ,then they and us would know who was leading and where they were all coming in the public vote

RTE's You're A Star used to give us the correct order every week, but not the actual percentages.

I suspect the main reason the producers keep the results secret is so that they can manipulate the hell out of the show and try and get the result they want. It was hilarious every year watching that chancer Cowell praise acts in the first week, and then having to furiously backtrack when he realised they weren't liked by the public : him having access to the figures was part of the process of trying to make him look like an all knowing music guru.

They don't want the public knowing who's getting the most votes and least votes. I also think they don't want the contestants and judges knowing who's getting most and least. Although if you look at the polls over the net you sort of get a rough idea. Saying that even the polls give a false impression sometimes, I mean Kitty is 3rd on the "Who is your favourite" poll on here and yet we know she was either 2nd or 3rd from bottom last week. Johnny was supposed to be popular and he was either 2nd or 3rd from bottom. I thought the Risk were popular but they WERE bottom.
I think giving the percentages away would spoil it a bit.

This.

A few years ago someone in the know (and I had no reason to disbelieve then) said this is precisely why results are in no particular order; betting syndicates could use that knowledge to interfere with the phone vote and manipulate the outcone.

Even small interference could potentially lead to some very big payouts if a syndicate did it right.

It would completely ruin the show

Knowing the order/percentage of votes would also have an impact on the next week's voting.

Already the one bit of information we are given - i.e. who is in the bottom two - has an effect on what happens the next week. Usually the saved act gets a large vote in reaction to their near miss and escapes the bottom two the following show (though they are usually back in the bottom two the week after that when their fans cease panic voting).

You may as well end the series if he gave out the percentages in any given week.

Of course I, personaly, would love to know. I just don't want them being widely known.

Simon knows

Interesting. So that means they could manipulate it so that Amelia does not come back.

Hmm... The plot thickens.

They'll never reveal the percentages week by week because if say Kitty was second one week or Janet was way out in front that could change the way people vote or see people vote tactically.

The DS forum polls are the least accurate of all. They have to be with just a few hundred voting, it's a miserly amount.

I agree totally. I said similar on another thread recently.


It could also be used by voters and the judges to manipulate who wins the X Factor.

But it instead has a big impact via the producers, who use the info to maipulate the show in the direction they want ie. deliberately ruining the chances of acts who are doing well in the voting but who they don't want to win, as happened with Mary Byrne last year.

I don't think he does (or did, when he was on the show) - he seemed pretty shocked last year that 1D were never in the top 2...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1zvUn3PgHk

I tend to think that the only thing that is straight is the public vote. It is collected independently and is carefully monitored via OFCOM. I don't think anyone knows the result until the lines have closed.

The question is, are the actual voting numbers released or is it only the order?

Maybe the producers are only told the order of the last three?

Hmm...

Hehe I don't know about that but a significant syndicate could for example flip the bottom quater of the acts around so say 5th goes to 9th for or influence say the top quarter.

If i remember that old thread correctly it would be more a case of pushing a dead cert away from the final or pushing an unlikely into the final over a course of time. With placing significant bets earlier on in the lives.

It's not a miserly amount. Even if it's only 500, what are the chances of 500 random people around the UK voting on a poll and the majority of them picking the least favourites.