Apoligies if this has been mentioned before:

Ant and Dec have recently been involved in a scandal involving the rigging of telephone voting. The programmes which they hosted - and which were run by production companies that they owned - were found to have cynically defrauded viewers of tens of thousands of pounds in telephone voting scams. They personally had to return a trophy awarded to them fraudulently.

And yet here they are on Britain's got talent, happily reading out the premium rate numbers as though nothing had happened. I can't really believe this - have they really been able to carry on as normal without any loss of credibility at all ??!!

They are shameless aren't they? By the by, I think their presentation has been very poor this week. The same old inane questions night after night - sell by date is surely fast approaching.

Saturday Night Takeaway got huge ratings as well for its last series so people still seem to appreciate that they are the best presenters we have.

Nobody has ever been able to make anything stick on them.

(But they have no production role on BGT. It's a Syco show, and after a significant investigation into The X Factor, OFCOM concluded that the voting was being conducted fairly and without and the results were the ones voted for by the public).

They didn't "have" to hand the award back - they returned it by choice. The alleged story was that Robbie Williams would only present the award if A&D won and the producers agreed - no evidence that A&D had any knowledge of this.

Also, although they own a production company, investigations cleered A&D of knowing about the vote scandel.

I doubt A&D are that involved in the day to day running of their production company - the only thing they are guilty of is employing some dubious employees.

Yeah Ant are Dec are soooo evil aren't they.

God you have them on par with eating babies.

I have noticed how they are starting to say that if you still call in after they announce that the phone lines have been closed, then you may still be charged for the call. Ant and Dec are very good presenters though. They have so much confidence on the stage. They are that comfortable, that the stage is like their second home.

Er ... no I don't. Perhaps you've replied by mistake to another thread.

I've merely pointed out that I'm amazed that their credibility is intact after the recent scandal. If they'd been eating babies then I would be going further than questioning their credibility.

As far their 'only being in charge and not knowing what their employees were up to': this excuse is often wheeled out by people in authority. Where does the buck stop then?

I think that is pretty stanrard accross all channels and programming now

it's nice tho' that they have handed back vast sums to charity......

But WHY? In this day and age why are people STILL being charged?

All that seems to say is that we will carry on as we always did but we have now warned you so we have got ourselves covered.

How hard is it to stop a computer and rejected anymore calls and only charge the calls that it accepted?

We have been to the moon but we can't with all the computers in the world stop a phone call and not charge you for it if it didn't register.

This is the type of thing that goes on for years and no one ever asks or answers the question.

I think it is now more a case of deliberatly not rejecting calls to make a bit more cash. I'm pretty sure the wording of the disclaimer "your vote will not be counted and you may still be charged" would cover them for that.

It doesn't make it right though of course.

Did they have credibilty to begin with? The fact that their work is confined to ITV, the lowest common denominator of British channels, tells you everything you need to know.

ant and dec are brilliant and i think that a silly phone scam shouldn't effect there career they don't stop the phone lines for taking the votes but carry on charging... they only read the numbers out

i think there wicked and are doing a brillaint job

xx

According to the OFCOM report into X Factor:


I would assume that seeing as it is the same production team, the same systems are being used. They are just covering themselves in the event that the technology fails.

By all accounts, if you are stupid enough to text after the lines have closed then you deserve to piss your money away. If they were closing the lines without telling anyone then you have a problem. It's quite clear when they close what with the announcements, screen banners and dramatic music.


Do you honestly think that BBC1 wouldn't love to have them?

It's obvious that they are covering themselves, but the question was why in this day and age is no not possible to stop a charge being made to a number that doesn't get through. There is no reason! It is possible! So why don't they do it?

I agree. I mean their Saturday programme is Chav TV at its best.
Loads on screaming and other uneducated noises and brain-dead games mostly for uneducated fat people.

The same sort of common as muck people who liked, watched and supported Barrymore.

It would appear that they do. The producers do not operate the phone lines, but they have been pushing (the X Factor producers are also the BGT producers) the operators to improve their technology since before the phone-in scandals. Judging by the OFCOM report, they have told their operators to implement the technology and not charge late callers.

However, in this day and age, they need to be 100% sure and so they say "may" be charged even though it would seem to be the case that you shouldn't be if everything goes to plan.

The charges relate to people that phone outwith the window, not simply those that can't get through. If you don't get as far as the voice message on the phone, then you will not be charged (again, made clear in the OFCOM report).

Of course, the far easier scenario is... when the lines close, don't call.

I've got an eating baby. Should I enter him for BGT?

Actually A&D get on my wick, coming on after each act.

However, I'm forwarding this post to Noel Edmunds. Wasn't there some thing about...? (Hmmmmmmmmmmmm)