Equality is the name of the game with The Voice. In the XFactor if Cowell and co want a singer out, they will give them rubbish songs, stupid dance routines or give them a bad slot to sing in. We witnessed the scale of this manipulation when during the first live results show this series, a producer was seen kneeling down below the judges table ordering Louis Walsh to vote of a certain act. That's disgraceful and just shows what extent the show and its producers will go to to get rid of certain contestants.

With the Voice, Im not saying there's no manipulation at all, but it's far less than XFactor. The Voice is an honest show, it gives everyone a decent chance and celebrates their voice and the music industry rather than putting through joke acts for just silly "entertainment value". The Voice has kept its credibility and integrity while other shows like XF has lost it.

Don't tell me: they get to push some kind of button

The fat black girl was a producer favourite until her 'shock' elimination. Amy Winehouse's mate was pushed quite a lot too. They did have favourites.

The irony is, the eventual winner is the one who completely flew under the radar which must've been a kick in the teeth. X Factor manages to stop radar dodgers in their tracks. She hasn't done much for the "credibility" of the show since winning either.

The team system ensures the chosen finalists can't even COMPETE against each other till the final.

The cannon-fodder being dispensed with faster than WW1. They are hardly even there before they are gone.

It's a completely broken format under the facade of something more credible, and a load of free advertising on a public channel for Universal. Even if one of their artists has died and they drag along her best friend to assist in promoting her.

Despite the best friend of dead Amy Winehouse being horrific, and with Bohemian Rhapsody doing something that would make even an XF joke contestant blush.

The comments for that from the coaches who must not criticise being one of the few highlights of a dire run of live shows.

How can you say with 100% certainty what the producer was saying to Louis? Was you there? Do you have a recording of the conversation? The producers have been seen speaking to the judges on numerous occasions before, it doesn't mean anything at all. He could've been telling Louis who to vote off, but he also could've been saying anything else. You can't use that to say X Factor is fixed and The Voice isn't.

It was blatantly obvious the producer was urging Louis Walsh to vote off that female act because they wanted to keep Ryland the "entertainer" for ratings purposes. Louis Walsh almost messed up the plan by saying he wanted Ryland home, before changing his mind to adhere to the producers' demands.

The producers know how the voting goes and tip off the judges how to vote. For example this week that girl Jade wasnt right at the bottom of the vote, but the producers wanted her out, so told the judges to go for a 3 to 1 split because a deadlock wouldve resulted in the group from going home. For the last two weeks the producers have desperately tried to get Jade out of the competition because she was taking away viewer votes from Ella, who is a similar artist. They now hope that Jade's former fans will start backing "chosen one" Ella who hasnt been doing well in the public vote so far.

This is true, but the producer was only there to be caught on camera to cause all the controversy and try and create a new evil overlord like Cowell.

Which failed.

It's not "blatantly obvious". Louis has made those kinds of decisions before.

If he almost messed up the plan then how did he know who to go with in the end? The producer could have been influencing him, but he also might not have been.

I do think X Factor is scripted to a degree but the way the slightest thing is picked up on, you'd think it was being run as a watertight operation with military precision. I hate to break it to you, but it isn't.

A lot of it was fixed. Look at the voting % for The X Factor 2008. Eoghan Quigg was topping the votes nearly all the weeks until the quarter final stages. The producers and Cowell especially, even though he was his mentor, didnt want Eoghan to win. Cowell said he was depressed about X Factor 2008 until 2 weeks before the end, probably because he knew how the voting was going and he didnt want that guy to win. So what the producers did in the final was give Eoghan the worst singing spot which is to sing first, they gaave him the worst guest act to sing with, and they also made him sing the one song again in the final which made him lose loads of votes in a previous week of the show. Even after all of that, Eoghan was very close to Alexandra Burk and JLS in the voting. Had he been given favourable songs, singing position and guest artists to sing with, he would've won. This just shows how much producer manipulation was occuring in order to ensure someone else won.

The producers also changed the rules of the competition in XFactor 2010 in order to get Cher Lloyd to the final. During the semi final there never usually is a sing off. Suddenly that year they introduced a sing off just to make sure Cher got into the final. Yet another case of producer manipulation.

We know, you are preaching to the choir.

The point is The Voice is actually MORE fixed, and for exactly the same reasons XF is.

I'm not denying any of that, and it seemed to happen on The Voice too. Leanne flew right under the radar whilst the black girl in Tom's group were heavily pushed as well as Amy Winehouse's mate and Bo.

I'm just saying, every decision you see and everything that gets read into does not automatically point back to producer manipulation.

The reasons behind the two examples you suggest could be that Eoghan would've been a flop winner and bad PR for what is regarded as one of the best seasons ever. Meanwhile, the guest performers had already been booked for the final, could you really see Tesco Mary duetting with Will.I.Am? But you're just deflecting from The Voice's manipulation.