oh ok lol maybe not then! i did vote once another time and got a reply just sayin thanks for voting. But i dont really text vote so i wasnt sure.

Not really. Us not getting any sound for Edith's performance probably made some people feel for her and vote. And those who were going to vote, were going to anyway.

Those wanting to vote for Kim would have wanted to do so after her performance, but the lines were closed the moment she finished.

Wow Edith being given an unfair advantage........... what are the odds eh?

to be honest i think edith got most her votes between 1 and 4 this afternoon!! Colin murray really is a true mate of hers, shes lucky to have him!
Her and Kim both did brill

Just heard the result as I read this! I'll stick with conspiracy , right or wrong, as Kim was so far ahead in the betting up to tonight ( and as in all previous reality shows of this type, this meant they had inside info of each nights votes), that I'm reluctant to put it all down to BBC music programme ineptitude.

But we'll never know until the bios eventually come out in years to come about "reality tv secrets" , which I'm sure they will in lots of cases.

The answer I think is that anyone of the last 3 could have won and you couldn't really compare them anyway. Look at it as if you are not voting for a winner but to show you like the person you voted for or what they did. You showed that and gave money to charity. Be happy.

I go for the cock-up theory rather than a conspiracy - don't think they can have realised how popular the whole thing was going to be with the voting public when they originally scheduled the programme.....the final number of votes on Friday certainly seemed to be a surprise to David and Carrie and surely they must have been given some estimate beforehand of what to expect?

You will never get enough details. Foul ups are often hidden. Betting reflected earlier performances and we don't know how close the SF was The Bookies showed Edith way ahead the last time Carrie taught her a song too. The money total tonight was not up that much on last nights which suggests a lot fewer votes. There are umpteen explanations other than "somewhere ....over.... gap... the rayyynnne boww" being more like Debra singing than Kim previously. Its possible the audience changed, texting mattered because more of Edith's supporters text, Edith's vote came in early, vote timing mattered, or perhaps Edith had more determined fans.

Yeah its all good baby (as the great Lisa I'anson would say ). I have no problem with edith winning... fairly. She was good and I was rooting for her to begin with. Its just unfairness I dislike, but I will get over it.

It figues that someone would try to make it sound like Kim didn't sing well.

I'm sorry it's you.

I'm with everyone who thinks Kim was robbed but am trying not to worry about it too much - it is all for charity after all. I think the most disappointing thing is that the beeb lost a fortune in telephone votes this evening - the final should have been last night or tomorrow.

I didn't know we couldn't vote on the phones today until it was too late - no doubt the radio one listeners knew this morning though

Edith had more inside determined fans I would think. She's been the chosen one from the start. Unfair advantage broadcasting live every day, preferred and cooed over by Parks not to mention being Cat Deeley's mate.

I know it's ultimately about the charity and that's what really counts, but I can't help feeling like the public were duped, what was the b***y point of the last ten days if the organisers already knew who they wanted to win? Not to mention the debacle that was the inability to vote properly.

Kim won every single night when the voting was normal, but she doesn't fit the bill for the final night. It has to be someone in keeping with all the 'gang'. Dawn French hugged her like a long lost child.

As for your critisism of Kim's singing tonight, not nice.

Thinking about it the text vote is Ok for committed fans - you hear Edith ( or in this case didn't ) and vote, You see Edith and if you are a Kim fan you vote Kim. Both lots of fans get the same amount of time.

Problem is the people who want to see both perform and then vote which is the only logical way of choosing - you can't do that. Applies potentially to each singer though.

Edith only benefits from the people who decide to give her a vote and might have given Kim one too but didn't have time.

Of course if Edith was bad everyone could conclude at the end of her song to vote Kim !

strange indeed......

It was always Edith for me. I don't listen to her show, I wasn't influenced by Richard Parkes and with the same 'fairness' I don't watch Eastenders (I do watch Corrie and didn't like Debra).

I loved Edith's easy laid back style and was gutted when she stepped up first and when I could'nt even hear her I felt certain it was curtains for her. I felt the comments that Patrick and Cat made, saying it didn't matter if people at home couldn't hear her, when nothing went wrong for Kim, the most unfair statement of the evening.

I voted 5 times for Edith today, and I haven't voted at all until then, so does that have any bearing on who won, I like to think so. Maybe I'm not the only one who kept their vote back until today

I suppose I should have expected this thread when I logged on...has there EVER been an FA/PI/X Factor show where there wasn't some cry of 'unfair' or 'bias' or 'cheats' at the end from everyone who's favourite didn't win??

Of course it should have been a normal final with phone vote - comes of trying to do two things at once - CFA final and red nose night.

We don't know who won every night. We only know Kim won the SF but not by how much. The betting suggested heavy Kim wins followed by Edith wins and Kim wins if the betting was informed.

I didn't mean to suggest she sounded bad but that when you play around with a popular song ,which everyone has heard recently by the other Edith, putting new long gaps. dipthongs and vocal flourishes in you might be in trouble. Everyone I recall who did this on FA - Simone, Paris, Louise, Debra all found voters not liking it. Its OK if it makes sense but not when it interrupts the expected flow with no clear meaning. I think the voters get upset if you give them a long break between " over" and "the rainbow" because you are keeping them waiting and showing off. May be wrong but Debra did it too and ended up in the bottom 3 when Lesley congratulated her for doing so much of it.

Hmm - what an anti-climax!!

I have had a fairly open mind about the best performer - tending towards Kim and Ade. In the truw spirit of the thing I decided to leave my final decision to the best performer on the night - I felt that that was Kim, by far.

I don't mind someone losing fair and square but b*****y hell, most people would listen to a performance and then vote. Kim had 2 minutes!!

And then that sycophant Colin spent 4 hours lamblasting his listeners to vote, vote, vote before the 7PM deadline.

What a con!! Someone ought to contact the tabloids!

thanks to everyone who have bitched and whined in this thread - its been funnier than anything ive seen on comic relief so far tonight

Yep. Totally, I've had a great time on here

[/quote]I voted 5 times for Edith today, and I haven't voted at all until then, so does that have any bearing on who won, I like to think so. Maybe I'm not the only one who kept their vote back until today [/quote]

Same here. Maybe Edith fans kept the heavy guns back until this evening?

True!! ...............!

Frankly, most of the shows were manipulated in one way or another, but then so is most of the pop industry.

Actually , the one they cried foul loudest about, PTR, was probably the most honest in outcomes. Javine did get voted out, because she didn't come across well as a person on tv, although to be fair she's been fine since.

Walsh actually allowed the ginger one into the group without interference or dodgy songs, or outright bias, even when he admitted he didn't want her there. And he allowed theSouthport kid to go out, and was completely devastated when she did.

Cowell, Fuller and Parks and his bosses wouldn't have let things like that happen, if they could help it!

Yes, clearly Edith going first was totally unfair.

I presume in order to make it totally fair Kim should've gone first.

i think its just the fact edith went first both times! They could have at elast done a head or tails type thing like they did in pop idol!
Anyways nevermind its all over with now by the mornin no one will care.

If Edith had lost and she performed last both times with very little voting time, some of her fans would have felt it was unfair to her as well and they would be vocal about it too.

I'm not going to say Kim was robbed, but I have certain questions about why the voting happened the way it did with the last performer getting less voting time than the previous ones, especially since it was only text voting. When loads of people are texting at the same time, the networks can suffer from text traffic. It doesn't have the same reliability as calling the votes in.

A couple of my texts for Kim at the very end didn't make it in time. I sent the texts during her performance and then suddenly as she got to the judges opinions the voting was closed!! A couple minutes later the alerts came through on a couple of my texts to say when they had been sent but the times shown would have been too late, so I know some of my votes for her didn't get counted ~ unless they honoured the late ones as well, which I don't know if they did.

I can't imagine I'm the only one who suffered from late texts going in because of traffic. It would have been more efficient to get the votes via call voting because they get counted more quickly. If you send a text and your network is suffering from too many texts going out your vote may not make it in time with such limited voting times such as they had tonight.

Texting is ok when you have a lot of time for them to arrive and be counted, but when it's only open for just a few minutes, not all the texts are going to come through before it closes.

On a normal night you can vote either by directly calling or by sending a text and they close the text lines several minutes before the call lines. It gives them a little bit of time to gather any stray texts that might have arrived a little late because of the traffic. I hate voting by text anyway unless we are given a huge amount of time to get them in for this reason. I don't feel confident that they all will get counted. Calling the number feels more secure to me.

Some texts I send may not get to their recipient until an hour or more later! I just can't figure out why they only accepted texts during the performances tonight. I know a lot of people have mobile phones, but not everyone has one and some people don't even know how to use their text facility! I just felt that there were going to be people who couldn't vote tonight. I didn't even know the calling lines had closed at 7pm so I didn't call in before that because I never thought they'd close them during the actual performances! I heard later that Radio 1 listeners were reminded all day that the lines closed at 7pm, but I don't listen to R1 and if it was announced anywhere else prior to 7pm I missed it.


We all raised a lot of money voting for the last couple of weeks and that is what is most important, but that doesn't mean we don't care whether the competition was fair or not. Maybe it was fair and I didn't get all the information and so I have misjudged things as a result. I'm not trying to bitch about it because I've lost sight of what is important (which is raising the money), but remember that Edith's fans would be equally upset in the same situation and we are entitled to our opinion as much as they are.