Nice one Edith (as you'll remember, this was written on her hand during the Coldplay song) - a touch hypocritical?

Why is it hypocritical....

What's hypocritical about it??

Purely the Colin Murray element. Four hours of public service time promoting one contestant and relaying informationj about the 7PM cutoff for voting.

ALL the contestants should have had promotion at this time given the change in voting mechanism - this would:

1. have been fair and equitable
2. have raised more money for the charity

I have no problem with Colin supporting Edith, but under the circumstances of Friday, it was unfair.

So, hello again....

How is this unfair? Surely people who listen to radio one can make their own minds up. Its not as if Colin Murray told everyone who didn't want to vote for Edith, to wait until after 7pm.

Also, you *could* just say that by encoraging people to vote, Colin was in fact trying to get people to ring and thus raise more money for comic relief.

For what its worth. I didn't listen to Colin Murray. I didn't know that voting closed at 7pm. I voted for Edith (because I liked her better) twice, once on Thursday evening, when it looked liked she was behind to Kim. And once after the first performance, when her microphone didn't work, and I felt sorry for her.

Edith herself didnt expect to win and the MAKE VOTES FAIR hand graffiti related to Chris Martins penchant for writing MAKE TRADE FAIR on his hand. She was singing a Coldplay song it was a spoof and nothing more.

I havent listened to Colin Murray all week and still i voted Edith last night.

Even IF the Colin Murray thing was unfair (and frankly, I'm not sure it was. Perhaps one of the reasons Edith did the show was because she knew she could generate lots of votes, and therefore money, for the charity.), Edith wasn't responsible for his actions, so she wasn't being hypocrical.

I despair!

If you're going down that route, then you could easily name elements that were unfair on every one of the 13 contestants... It's the same in every reality show!

Did you expect that Colin and the other Radio 1 DJs wouldn't support their friend?

Did you expect that no members of the Eastenders cast would appear out of the woodwork to support Kim?

Did you think that Jennifer Saunders, Dawn French, Harry Enfield et al. would show no bias towards Ade?

Of course not!

Are you really such a closed-minded idiot?


She has FRIENDS on the radio. She WORKS on the radio. They will PROMOTE her on the radio.

Edith seems a nice enough lass, but the problem I have with the whole radio 1 thing was that Colin was promoting businesses on radio for voting for edith..a kind or bribery..eg You vote for edith and we'll give you free advertising on the beeb..very naughty and not in the general spirit of comic relief....as the same for the TV porgramme on Friday..thought i was watching ITV ads at one point..leaves a bit of a taste in th mouth!

And Colin had no way of verifying whether or not the people actually did vote for Edith or not - I suspect a fair proportion *didn't* but said they would to get on the radio.

The day that I depend on Colin Murray to tell me what to do will be a sad day indeed. And that goes for Barbara Windsor too. I voted for Edith for no other reason than that I thought she was the best singer, and I'm pretty sure that's the only reason anyone voted for either her or Kim.

That was the problem though

People wanted to vote on Firday based on the singing

Unfortunatly people coudnt listen to Kim and then vote as the lines closed as soon as she had finished(this happened twice)

Oh my word! It's bloody tv programme, and the whole point of the show was to make people vote, you know to raise money for Comic Relief, you know the charity!!!

My oh my, if this is all you have to complain about, then I am lost for words.

I guess you were probably talking during all the videos they showed during Friday night. or maybe you changed the channel, because remember, it is not the person who 'won' some shitty little tv show that matters, it's the tens of thousands of people here and in Africa that are the winners.

Just remember that and that in the time it has taken me to type this, around 30 people in Africa have died from Aids!

JC

Well said JC

I expected Colin to, of course. But not to such an extent. I also didn't expect him to be saying things like "vote for Edith - she's the only one left who can sing" when there were still others who could sing in there.

I expected the rest of Radio 1 to show more variety, like they normally would. I didn't expect the Edith-backing on Jo Whiley's show, for example, to be so intense that Graham Norton joked that it was like a cult.

Remember too that the Radio 1 audience is used to phoning and texting. People who listen to Colin and Edith's show (and who will, statistically speaking, tend to like Edith) may send in votes even if they don't watch Comic Relief FA and don't care about it, just because it would be fun to make Edith win.

It bothered me right from the start, before I was even sure who was in the show, let alone who my favourites might be, that one of the students had a national radio station campaigning for them.

People would be voting, thinking there was something like a level playing field, and there wouldn't be.


Of course, the celebs would have celeb friends who were shown wanting them to win. But I didn't run into something promoting Kim every time I turned to BBC 1, or Debra if I tried ITV.

All I can say is Kim did very well on her own thank you She didn't need people to start campaigns to promote her whilst she was in the academy.

Watching on the night that Kim went first (was that Thursday?) it struck me that the scheduling of the show gave her a bit of an advantage to be honest. Coming straight off the back of Eastenders (in a couple of weeks that have focussed a fair bit on Sam Mitchell), she was in the forefront of my mind when Fame Academy started.

So you could say that the BBC sabotaged her by not showing 'enders on Friday!

Previous exposure to the celebs definitely has an influence. I started watching loving Ade having been a fan since his Young Ones days. I wasn't remotely interested in Debra, for example, until I remembered she was evil Shell on Bad Girls (I don't watch Corrie) - but I definitely thought I would loathe Kim as I've never really liked her Eastenders character, but I definitely warmed to her. My knowledge of Edith is restricted to thinking she was rubbish on Ri:SE and seeing her in the worst dressed section of Heat a lot.

At the end of the day I voted purely on performance, but can totally see how a fan base OR big promotional campaign a la Colin Murray could help. But really, who cares? Money was raised, the show was entertaining and I'm sure Kim is signing her 'Chicago' contract while I type! End of story!

I do understand people's natural uncomfortableness with Colin Murray doing anything at all

Kim probably did get some help from Eastenders, but I don't think interest in Eastenders translates as automatically into votes for Kim as some posters have seemed to suppose. Her character's easy to dislike, for one thing.

In any case, that sort of indirect influence isn't the same as having a campaign of the sort that took place on Radio 1.

I think that's right, although I found mysefl liking Kim and I was just barely aware of her existence before (and had never seen her in Eastenders).

So long as enough people don't care, it's fine. But if a lot of significance starts being attached to it ... (if, say, we have to put up with some kind of Edithmania or she starts appearing on tv all the time), ... then it may seem an injustice.
Last edited by Veri : 14-03-2005 at 02:56

Problem is you can't have fair voting except when everyone has all day to vote and a set ending time a- more effective electoral machine matters then too.

If you had had only text voting in a set period people with phones only would be totally excluded. You would make certain social groups even more powerful. They seemingly couldn't offer phone voting on the night. Do you exclude those people who wouldn't text or not?

If you allow pre-voting on phones or any other way it is open to one set of fans to do it more than others. Kim won on Thursday with the advantage of inheriting her Eastender's audience coming straight out of her big last scene. If those people had thought to vote for Kim as the poll for Friday opened Kim might well have had the advantage from prevoting. The system is fair as both sides can do it - if there are problems its that campaigns are rarely equal, some people inspire fans to vote more and they didn't say loudly enough that phone votes would end onFriday before the shows- they did actually say you can vote for your winner now though on Thursday .

Text voting was OK until they cut the second vote off whilst Kim was still being judged. Logically though the Kim and Edith fans started voting when Patrick said go, so the only people not voted by the end were the ones waiting to decide between the two and those waiting to decide if Kim deserved a vote. They should have had longer but the first group could have come down for Edith as much as Kim so it begs the question which the public preferred -you can't just assume just Kim lost votes there. The "Yes that was good I will vote Kim"voters are the problem area. Thats what happens though when you have no set timetable and are running late and decide on the moment and its offset in this case by the votes Edith must have lost because no one could hear her - which they didn't sort out for the same timetabling reasons.

Running order is also impossible. Deciding order on past votes may help perpetuate that order by making the best last. A random order may produce an unbalanced show - it goes downhill rather than rising to a peak. Changing the order during the show means the rest gaps beween performances differ and someone goes twice in a row, Coming on last is normally an advantage as last impressions are more easily remembered and going on first is more difficult, You can argue it any way though as different groups decide at different points. The one on first may get repeated votes with longer to place them from people they impress or people will start voting for the next performer as soon as they start singing if the first does poorly. Dedicated fans will vote anyway from the start. If you allow enough time for the undecided and those waiting till the end of the second song to vote its about as fair as you can get it as the last singer gets the advantage of going last and the first gets more time for any converts to vote for them. Its still not equal but the advantages are unknowable and partly shaped by performance.

I just can't grasp what the concept of Celebrity Fame Academy is meant to be when the reaction is so divided between 'ah, it's all for charity' and my own view 'it's still a competition to find the best singer with a lot of laughs along the way'. If it doesn't matter about singing but only for raising money, they should just tell jokes or have a 'CR Worst Singer Comp'.

The voting was utterly ridiculous because so many people were voting for laughs clearly demonstrated by Gina, Nick and Reggie's survival over so many nights. How could Reggie win over Debra who was definately the most improved singer, she gave us some fantastic performances. Because she has a trained voice, Kim was without doubt the the best and her acting ability gave her performances that added 'oomph'.

If it had been Celine Dion, Shania Twain and Edith in the final three, Richard Park would have still chosen the same, there was a bias towards Edith from the getgo because of her background in 'presenting' music even though she was a mediocre singer.

The results would have been totally different had Craig or Lesley had the deciding votes. I hope RP has mumps next time for he's not only a disgraceful judge, he's a bumptious prat.

And yes radio does have a significant influence in voting, for regardless of how resistant you claim to be, there are thousands more who aren't and WILL vote when consistantly told to by your favourite DJ.

The only way to be fair to both camps would have been if Ade had been proclaimed the worthy winner because he gave us pure entertainment, his singing ability was never in question, bl**dy awful but he was unpredictable and fun.

So on that basis, all the companies that raised money for CR should not be allowed on TV with those giant cheques with their company names on them? I couldn't care less how they advertise as long as the charities benefit

Well said Moogs.

Mind you, given the massive profits companies like, for example, BT and Sainsbury's make, I was quite surprised by how little they donated! I'm not into berating individual celebs for how much/how little they donate relative to salary, but these huge companies get good PR/free advertising out of donations like this and personally, I think they could afford a bit more!