There's an article (as ever) in the ever-reliable Daily Mail (!) today that bangs on at some length about the Peter Andre controversy from last weekend, part of which says:

"Strictly initially scores dancers on a combination of judges’ ratings and the public vote. However, only the public votes are counted when deciding which two dancers come bottom and go into the dreaded dance-off. After these two unlucky dancers perform once more, the judges decide their fate."

It's the quote in bold that I don't remember seeing before. If it's right, it strikes me as very odd that the judges' votes are completely ignored when deciding the bottom two. If that's the case, why bother with the votes of the judges at all - yet every week it's clearly stated that it's a combination of votes from the judges and the public that decide the final order. How many times in the Saturday show do you hear something like "If you want to change all that (the final order by way of the judges) vote for your favourite."

Oddly, the same article then goes on to say "The BBC points out that the producers cannot seriously be accused of fixing the entire show, as the couple who end up in the weekly dance-off do so by virtue of a public vote" which isn't the same thing at all as the first quoted statement.

Am I missing something?

Here's the article

It's the Daily Mail.

It's wrong.

It's badly written because that sentence contradicts the one just before. I think they mean that the public vote is used to determine bottom two only along with the judges' leaderboard scores. But then the judges get a second chance to choose who is eliminated whereas the public do not.

Yes wrong. The only time it is the public vote only is in the final.

Makes you wonder what else is wrong.

Discussion about article in here:-

http://forums.digitalspy.co.uk/showthread.php?t=2119362

Just about anything the Mail has to say on any subject?

Surely if that were true Jeremy wouldn't have ended up bottom 2?

Maybe they meant come the final?

No, they are. They don't have any extra knowledge, they are just stupid. They probably missed each time Tess says that they combined judges' and public votes.

The BBC uses the 'Cooper' voting system. They add one vote to another vote and then they disappear up their sleeve with a "Jus' like that" and a "Hur hur". Like sausages and babies, it is best not to enquire how these things are done.

Yes, they did get that bit wrong.

Of course this completely clears up the situation and the BBC are completely blameless of the suggestion, that they try to influence both the judges and public opinion and now "it'll all go away!"

Aw bless.
The Daily Fail does an in-depth investigative piece to produce a dossier and gets one of the most basic facts wrong.

The problem now is that the brand known as SCD is damaged. Many thousands of people read the Daily Mail and The Sun and believe what is written. How the judges will react tonight, I have no idea?

Actually, iof you think about it it is the public who decide who's in the bottom two, because depending how they vote, two mid table couples can end up in the bottom two.

If they hadn't brought doubt on the integrity of the judges vote, it would be fairer if the judges chose one who was in the bottom two, the one with the least judges' votes and the public vote chose the other. That would prevent two better dancers than a third, both ending up in the bottom two as has happened before.

The judges will have to be careful what they say and how they award points (I think).

According to Len on ITT, when judging the DO each judge will have to say WHY he/she is saving whatever couple.

Craig may choose couple X 'cos they performed the best
Len may choose couple Y 'cos their technique was the best

Darcey and Bruno will just say whatever comes into their head!

They like frozen food.