Not so much an issue now the live shows have begun but during the audition stages the show seemed very poorly edited with hard edits, obviously clipped sentences and arranging of two-way conversations that had completely different background noise depending on which person was speaking making it clear that each part of the conversation didn't happen at the same time.

An example is when they're trying to portray a contestant as being a bit nutty they edit in long 'awkward' silences that clearly aren't there in real time because you can tell by the background noise there's been a hard edit and the awkwardness has been spliced in from elsewhere.

Judge: What's your name? (general crowd murmuring in the background)
*shot of contestant not saying anything* (sudden removal of any crowd noise)
*shot of judges looking confused*
Contestant: My name's Jane (crowd noise from the first question strangely restored)

I don't get why given the budget of the show and their experience why the editing in this respect is always so poor. There are amateur videos on youtube that splice together bits of different TV shows to make an amusing conversation that sound more believable than this.

So for me the problem isn't that they fake so much (although preferably they wouldn't) but it's the fact they're so bloody terrible at making it seem believable.

Rubbish. It's one of the best edited shows on TV

Really? You think those scenes where we see half the audience rise to their feet and then 3 seconds later we hear them cheering or conversations between two people where the background noise is completely different depending on who is speaking are examples of good editing?

What do you normally watch, Big Brother audition tapes?

Tony, personally I think the producers are doing an amazing job considering the amount of footage they have to view and put together.

There's nothing wrong with the editing.