about competitions where people should be allowed to cast a free vote. ON a lot of competions in newspapers sweet rappers etc . THERE is always an option to cast a free vote by going to a website or something .

How come we can not cast a free vote . After the big brother fiasco i will never pay to vote again but well just wondered if anyone knows why there isnt an option to vote for nothing. Even if that meant registering on a website or something where you are only allowed to cast one vote.

You don't win anything, there's only a free option when there is a prize I think.

American idol is free voting so why not here

That's because in the US local phone calls are free anyway. I think you still have to pay to text-vote.

Don't be daft!

How would Cowell make any money if voting was free?

Come we all know that Simon does X-Factor to find the next big thing for the music industry. He is in this for the love of good music!!!

MB

I think it's because they make so much money through sponsorship and that they'd be worried that people would stop watching if they had to pay for the phonecall. I guess we're too used to paying premium rates here

I doubt it, if it was free then it would be even more unfair than it is now, I never agree with multiple voting anyway but if it was free all you need do is sit there with your finger on the redial button all night, in fact it would be open to abuse as you could put together a simple computer program that would ring repetively through a modem.

IMHO it should be one vote per number , if it was Andy would have won by a mile last year.

The reason voting is free on American Idol is because they make $600,000 for a 30 second commercial. Already, on shows like BB and X Factor, the voting is just a nice addition to the budget, but it would be irrelevant on American Idol compared to the advertising and product placement deals the can command.

I'm sure if they really wanted to they could make it one vote per person. Just ask voters to register at the start of the series and then have one vote per registered voter.

Multiple votes means more money for them though so the producers aren't really bothered. I suppose if people are willing to pay to vote several times that's fair enough. As you say if they made it free they would have to restrict number of times you could vote.