What, they would allow Kevin to get in the dance off?

Can't you just imagine the temper tantrums around here?

Bring it on.

It happened last year...

If Kevin and Louise in the DO is impossible, then the show is fixed. I believe its heavily manipulated, but not fixed.

Yes, oddly enough the "athon" really ditched Kellie & Kevin in it last year, dropping them from 3rd out of 7 to 6th out of 7 and probably from safety into the dance off

Never really gets mentioned amidst all the "KELLIE/KEVIN WAS THE JUDGES FAVOURITE" spin around these parts...

rather have Louise and Ore in the dance off

I'd forgotten that. I thought he'd never been in it.

Monkseal - as you're here, for Ed to avoid the DO it is better for there to be ties isn't it - so if the Cha-Cha-athon smoothes them out, then we're more likely to lose him - yes?

They - the beeb - don't get any revenue from the voting, that stopped when some years ago when there was a lot of hoo-ha about voting on these sort of shows generally, although to be fair, Strictly was not one of those accused. But the phone calls are all taken and sorted by an outside company - the price of voting also went down accordingly.

I can't.

What would be the point of someone like Ed even signing up for the show or if he did what would be the incentive to try as hard as he does from week to week knowing his bottom placing (can't think of a better way to phrase that ) would automatically get him eliminated?

Trying to engineer a way to get rid of someone you're not enjoying, even though others do, seems to go against the spirit of the show for me. I don't see Ed as a "problem" than needs "fixing". He's playing by the rules like everybody else - training hard to compete and entertain for votes.

Yes (presuming he's bottom of the leaderboard) - any tie helps out everyone below it and hurts everyone above it. The effect is also bigger the lower the tie is, so a tie between 4th and 5th helps Ed much more than one between 1st and 2nd.

Even before the hoo ha, the BBC didn't receive any money from the phone voting, they are not allowed to by law.

They are incorporated as a non profit organisation funded by the License Fee and have a wholly independent fund raising body - BBC Worldwide - which raises money to pay for programme creation through various means including the sale of rights to shows (like SCD) and DVD etc sales.

I admit I've loved watching some of Ed Balls routines, and no one can deny he works really hard. But it's now at a stage when I wouldn't mind if he went. But all credit to Katya who I think has done wonders.

On a different level, however much he is praised, I haven't enjoyed all Danny's routines. While his 'party' routines - Charleston, etc., have been excellent, as was his AT, his ballroom is not good, completely lacking in any finesse. Is that down to Oti? I don't know.

You are right, but on another level they did receive the money, as it was donated to Children in Need.

That changed when another show on ITV I think, were supposedly doing the same, - using the money for charity - but were accused of not donating all the money. There were problems along those lines with a lot of shows at the time.

Children in Need is a charity so the BBC still didn't receive it. Yes it is a BBC established charity but it's run independently.

The BBC issue was because of phone votes to name a cat on Blue Peter when it was discovered the cat had already been named and so people were phoning up to vote, costing them money, when it was a foregone conclusion.
At that point Ofcom stepped in and said only programmes which were actual fund raising telethones like Children in Need, Text Santa etc, could use phone votes as a method of raising money. Hence the CiN fund raising stopped on Strictly and the cost of the call dropped.

(sorry if it sounds like I'm banging on about it but as a journalist at the time, I wrote an awful lot of stories about the funding rows )

If Danny tops the board then all my votes are free to support Ed...

Also I think supporters of Ore and Louise can also be reasonably confident that their pick will survive a dance off so are probably not that concerned.

As confident as Pixie's were?

Unless of course they are against each other .... (can just imagine the forum meltdown/delight that Jo and Kevin would be facing each other.....)

Thanks - my head gets a bit scrambled sometimes with all the possibilities, but the long and the short of it is the judges need to ensure no ties if they really genuinely want Ed to stand the best chance of being in the DO.

The Judge can dance though. I like Ed and hes put so much into learning steps but hes clearly out of his league.

And that is why I think whether Ed survives depends on the ranking. Not convoluted stuff about ties and where but the top two places.

When your favorite is one of the contenders and comes in at 1 or 2 then you can afford to gift Ed a few votes. Because then they are unlikely to be in the dance off and more likely to beat anyone who goes up against them because the judges like their dance. There has never been a dance off between (1) and (2) as far as I can recall and I don't think it's possible. But clearly anyone in either position probably out-dance any of of the others.

My theory is that if Danny tops the leader board and Claudia is second then Ed is most likely to survive as I think those are the two with the largest support and their supporters can feel fairly relaxed that they are safe and so can go for the more entertaining dancer.

If this were so then she would not have been in the DO as it would have been Rob versus Greg. I suggest that Claudia and Ore have questionable public support since both are good dancers that have been bottom two.

How do any of us know what the public vote really is,

We don't. We can but speculate by what we see week on week. Thus far neither Ed's or Rob's support has been fully tested although last week gave us the closest hint. We have no idea about Danny and Louise and, unless things go awry with the judges' voting, I doubt we will ever know as these seem a shoe-in for the final. The final 3 and 4 is to be fought by Claudia, Ed, Ore and Robert based upon public vs judge voting thus far.

I think now is the right time for Ed to go I want the best dancers left for the final not another Chris Hollinsclough.

Having re-read the thread title, I now have visions of Danny Mac having his trousers altered and dancing with his gonads hanging out - ooh saucy.