Denying that it was "fixed" or "rigged" or that any of the celebs "cheated" is just a way to miss the point. Nor is any "conspiracy theory" involved.

Radio 1 really was trying to get Edith to win. That's a fact, not a theory. You may be comfortable with one of the celebs having a national radio station campaigning for them; but others aren't.

Also, it's very likely that the switch to text voting worked against Kim's support more than Edith's; and the quick vote cutoff right after Kim sang definitely cost her some votes (such as one of mine).

That's not saying anyone made those decisions as a way to "fix" or "rig" the result, so again there's no "conspiracy theory" here and no claim that any of the celebs "cheated".

If the intention of the bbc is to maximise voting and therefore money raised it is odd it does not make ee people do more as that would raise yet more money. In the absence of that it seems odd to allow one of its programmes to be used in such a partial way as this makes a mockery of the beeb's duty to be impartial in more important matters. Of course it does not matter who won, but it does matter how it was done.

You're right Veri - I don't give a sh*t about a National radio station supporting Edith - of course they did, she worked there..... I agree that the switch to text voting also probably helped her. I also happen to think that Kim was the better singer, who performed better on the night and consistently better thoughout the competition. But that's just my opinion!

Edith might have got more exposure - but so what? I don't care now and I didn't care then who won. Which is probably why I just can't take all the conspiracy theorists seriously.... my fault not theirs.

I don't think I'm missing any point at all by denying that it was fixed or rigged. Some people think it was fixed, some people don't. The people who do, can use the Radio 1 and the voting stuff to prove their case if they like.
I accept that information, but still don't think it means the contest was rigged.

Kim wasnt bothered that she didnt win so why should you all be bothered? I was watching when the winner was announced 2day because I taped it and just before Edith said something to Kim like 'It doesnt matter who wins' and Kim agrees and says 'No it doesnt matter' then when Ediths name was announced Kim wasnt at all disapointed and was cheering loads for Edith.

Exactly. None of it was a big deal (apart from raising the money), and none of it should be taken seriously.

There was unfairness and a dissatisfying ending. By focusing on whether it was a "fix" or "rigged", people overlook the real problems.

And people who want to say there was no problem often present the accusation that's being made against the show as something quite extreme (a fix or conspiracy), then argue against that. But usually the accusation isn't so extreme. It's that Radio 1's campaign was unfair or that the voting change favoured Edith.

Moreover, there was a deliberate attempt by a part of the BBC to get one of them to win: by Radio 1, for Edith. It's not a conspriacy theory when it's what actually happened.

Finally, people do care who stays and who wins. That's why they vote rather than give their money in other ways. Someone ought to win because more people wanted them to win, not because the voting rules changed in a way that favoured them or because they had something like Radio 1 mobilizing their support.

Edith might have won anyway. But no one knows, and there will always remain this element of doubt. That's less satisfying even for her supporters.

The calculation is very simple. If they could only afford one set of lines, or BT could only provide one set, you have to look at how much a FA final or keeping the pledge lines open would raise. If 4-5 million voted in the CFA final (FA2) you have to look at how much would be gained and how much lost in pledges in their peak viewing time. The answer is that they would have easily lost 10 times as much as they gained by having a phone vote for CFA.

The only answer was to put the CFA final somewhere else in the week but that would have meant all the people tuning into Comic Relief for the CFA final might not have bothered (it got their peak viewing figures of the night I think i read)

Its not conspiracy or cockup - its what happens when you have two objectives to meet at once and only enough phone lines for one.

Radio 1 campaigning is no different to half the Eastender's cast turning up and saying vote for our girl. If that wasn't organised i don't know what is. The BBC clearly wasn't not supporting that campaign as it interviewed everyone who turned up. Kim also had an inbuilt unavoidable advantage that none of the non-BBC people or people from lesser BBC shows had . You couldn't have had more voting assistance than having the major storyline in the nation's biggest, most watched, drama show shown just before the weekly CFA votes..Edith had support but then probably so did Nick, Reggie and Debra from their audiences. No one else started with a support base as big as the Eastender's audience.

No one knows what difference text votig made. Eastender's audiences include many teens. Radio 1's profile might be younger but we don't know who voted or by what means - there may have been few or a lot of text calls. We also don't know who a phoning audience would go for. We don't even know who was watching - a BBC evening audience, a FA audience, the Vicar of Dibley or Little Britain audience? all we know is that its not clear that someone who would vote for Alex or Alistair in FA wouldn't prefer Edith over kim anyway.

The only advantage Edith had was timing in that her campaign was reminded more on the final day before phone voting closed but there was nothing to stop a counter campaign or anyone elses supporters voting any time after the show on Thursday. You can't legislate against better campaigning. You can't tell what effects it has either especially when we don't know any details of the vote. As we don't know when votes came in its pretty pointless speculating whether Babs Windsor persuaded people to vote on Thursday or Edith won singing Shout on Thursday or if Radio 1 did on Friday afternoon or whether people voted on the night voting before after or during the last two songs.

Its true people waiting to vote for Kim to the end of her second song were cut out but that arguably just matched the earlier cock up which left Edith mute. Anyone arguing for a conspiracy theory has the rather basic problem that the conspiracy wasn't very good when it muted the chosen winner - its like organising the three gunmen and the triangulated firing positions in Dallas but then forgetting to buy the bullets.

You are right Edith might well have won anyway in any other format. The audience on Friday was less likely to be an Eastender's hangover. A FA audience I suspect would have preferred Edith in the same way as it preferred not to make Simone or Lorna the winners of FA 2. "Somewhere Over the Rainbow" with an orchestra, sung in the style that got Debra into trouble with the voters, wasn't obviously going to appeal to a FA or a Comic Relief audience more than Edith. Given Lesley's and Carrie's summing up of the two choices I suspect a British audience would take the suggestion and vote for passion over technique - particularly as until the final we could hear better than Richard who missed the subtler moments. It certainly wasn't a surprise that Edith won - her odds were better than Kims at the start of the series and only fell below 40-60 when she fell behind Debra in one vote for unexplained reasons - and her last three days performances were well up there with Kim's.

I doubt if any Edith fans are worrying about the result. The problems all seem to come down to conflicting goals - you can't have a final in another show when you have no phone voting lines without problems. it happened because it was for charity. The two last contestants did their bit to the full and who wins these things is always controversial as people complain about who went where, what judge said what and how songs equate. its true people vote for their person to win but in a competition like this with multiple criteria in play it made far more sense to vote because you liked a performer. In CFA it just so happened that more people voted for Edith.
Last edited by thenetworkbabe : 26-03-2005 at 03:38

It is very different. Did you even listen to Radio 1? Nothing like that campaign happened for anyone else in the competition.

No one had the sort of campaign Radio 1 was running for Edith; and even though I knew what it was like at other times, I was surprised by how far Colin was going on Friday.

Support bases are unavoidable, and if we're into "no one knows" country, no one knows how well Eastenders watching translates into votes for Kim. And Radio 1 DJs certainly seem to think that a lot of their listeners watch Eastenders, so there's some overlap.

No one knows absolutely and for sure, but does anyone seriously think it gave an advantage to Kim? How would that work? How would her fans be more likely to know of the change than Edith's? Are they supposed to be more likely to listen to Radio 1? And how is she supposed to get a younger, more txt-inclined mix of supporters?

(I won't repeat my argument from the end of the "KEEP VOTES FAIR" thread, but it's there if you want to look at it.)

I would vote for Alex or Alistair and I preferred Kim.

Where would this counter campaign take place?

And do you seriously think that Radio 1 reminding people of the voting change was balanced by the possibility of voting earlier by phone?

Good thing I'm not arguing for a conspiracy theory then.

But Edith winning despite the sound problem makes it even less likely that she won because of her performance.


It's interesting that you regard their summing up as a coded "vote for Edith". (Though I would say Kim's singing had more passion, not less.)


Their sore winner behaviour in this forum suggests otherwise.

We don't know that. What we know is that she had more votes. For all we know, more people backed Kim.
Last edited by Veri : 26-03-2005 at 06:20

You see, I don't think it was unfair or dissatisfying either. The only point I seem to be disagreeing with (not missing) is yours. And you may not be right.....

As usual in many competitions, it comes down to personal preference.
Personally, I though Kim was slighlty ahead of Edith, but they were both good.
There are often upsets when it comes to public voting and contestants are voted off ( or not voted for in sufficient numbers to keep them in) for what could be a variety of reasons. If a contestant is perceived to be good and has a great chance of going on to the next week, there is often apathy among the public as it is assumed they will go through. The presenters almost invariably say the voting is very close, and I assume this is to encourage more voting.

These competitions will never be perfect.

I am right (1) that there are complaints that are not saying it was "fixed" or "rigged" and that aren't "conspiracy theories", and (2) that people who argue against the idea that it was "fixed" or "rigged", or who complain about "conspiracy theories" are missing the point of those complaints.

They're missing the point because the point of those complaints is not that the show was "fixed" or "rigged" or that there was some theoretical conspiracy.

The same sort of thing happens when people complain about the editing (for example) in Big Brother. There are always people who pop up and call the complaints "conspiracy theories", as if there couldn't possibly be anything wrong with the editing that didn't involve some conspiracy.

Except we do know that Kim had more votes on Thursday, so it's unlikely that anything on Thursday's show had that effect.

I think Kim was robbed in the sense that as a singer, I thought she was head and shoulders above Edith... but people have different opinions and vote for different reasons. I think it's a shame they didn't publicise the fact the phone vote closed before the show, but I don't know how much difference it would have made anyway.

Although I supported Edith and Im glad she won, I can see why Veri is still upset about how the final night of Comic relief FA was played out. If you set something up as a competition- even if it is for Charity, you should really expect it to be set up fairly.
The voting on the last night was completely crazy, and completely unfair to Edith, Kim and Ade. Its only excuse was that it was for Charity, but comic relief should have been a bit more careful and thought things through in advance, before changing the vating system at what felt like the last minute.
I thought if voting had been open, Ade would have stood a good chance of winning as the only comic left in the group.
It is too late to worry about, and it did raise thousands for charity, but I do agree the last night of the competition wasnt run as fairly as it could have been.