But from what I can tell, they best acts were kept apart, by going on last on different shows?

What are the odds none of the favourites perform tonight whilst Doctor Who is on the air?

I'm really surprised that there's a clash with DW, but isn't that 'Oliver' thing on tonight too?

Yes, and I'm agreeing with it. It ensures the better acts reach the final, because if they don't get in the top 3 because one semi is imbalanced then they're out. The best 8 acts should be in the final.

Putting certain acts into different shows isn't the same thing as putting certain acts last in the running order.

And to reiterate, it's not just putting those acts last in itself which is the problem. It's also dependant on the treatment of those acts by the show.

If they are presented in every way to us as the star turn by every possible and legal means, then why even bother with the pretence of a semi-final?
Why not just go straight from auditions directly to the final?

I think that the fact that the public are voting is very important here when taken into the context of a phone-in competition.

What they are doing is not breaking any rules, but it sure is bent. It does seem to be stretching the limits of what they are allowed to do within the boundaries of the rules short of vote tampering.
To defend it by saying it's 'entertaining' is not really valid, as that is such a subjective term. Not everybody likes the same acts.

Michael Grade tried the 'entertaining' excuse, but it didn't wash with Ofcom.

So what now? It's the final.
Would it be okay for the show to favour an act as the most 'entertaining' according to their own opinion and therefore favour it over all others by pulling out all the stops?
If that's the case then it's not really a competition, and they really shouldn't be taking people's money.

The thing is, if the voting method is us ringing in, it's accused of being rigged... if we didn't choose and the judges choose, it'd be accused of being rigged.

How can ITV win?

By ITV not having a proven track history of rigging televoting in the past i.e TV comedy Awards and Ant & Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway. It will take a long time for me to have trust in an televoting/phone in system again!

They're obviously aware that the act on last has gone through each week. But they deliberately put acts they thought were popular last. (At least according to the Star story.) Popular acts will tend to go through.

But what I'm focusing on is whether putting them last made a difference to their votes, whether it made enough of a difference to care about, and whether the producers believe it makes a difference and are putting acts last to help them go through, rather than just to make what they think will be a more interesting show.

If the Star story had been written differently, it might have made it clear whether Simon, at least, thought that going last affected the votes. Unfortunately, it wasn't.


Exactly. But they'd also tend to get through even if they weren't on last. Indeed, they might have much the same chance of going through, so far as we know, because we don't know how much difference to votes going last makes.


What shows that putting them last is part of trying to make them popular, though, rather than trying to use their (expected) popularity to make the show better by ending on a high?

A show such as Strictly Come Dancing tends to put one of the best couples on last. In figure skating competitions, the best skaters appear towards the end. It's a very natural way to structure a tv show or a competition, even though it can bias the results to an extent. It doesn't have to be because anyone's trying to bias the results.


I agree that the show does things that will tend to boost the popularity of some acts. However, I don't think that's the whole story, and it's difficult to know how big a part it is.

Also, with a show such as SCD, a trailer can name the celebs and show some dancing; that'll be enough to get people interested. But with completely unknown acts, the show has to put things in the trailer that will look interesting. If the show shouldn't have any concept of who's popular, I don't think it can have a concept of who's good or entertaining either. Treating some acts as more entertaining than others, and treating some as more popular, are going to be much the same.


I think the votes should be free. They are for at least some of the American shows, which suggests that it might be feasible here as well. And it should at least stop people from thinking viewers were having their money taken under false pretenses.

A lot of other shows are about eliminating one each week, so it's hard to compare them directly. But it sounds to me, from what you and others have said, that a bunch of different things are helping the acts who go through. If they're favoured by the show anyway, or if they're the sort of act likely to be popular anyway, then putting them last may not be making much difference.

Perhaps they should have acts go on in a random order and make that part of the show. Have their name pop out of a ball-juggling machine, for example. That has a certain appeal.

I understand that you personally don't have any faith but I don't understand how show like this is supposed to get winners if the only 2 methods of choosing winners is claimed to be rigged?

But 'best' is a subjective term.
The show shouldn't even be approaching the acts in that way. Once you know that the show is treating some acts as 'better' than others then you know that at it's heart it's corrupted.

I don't necessarily agree that the 'best' acts got to the final because they were the best at all.

If you follow that logic through to it's natural conclusion then that would be like allowing the show to tell you who's the best and then allowing them to pull out all the stops to make them win by all means possible. Based on who they decided in their opinion is the 'best'.
And some people will still even pay them money as well.

Yes, but in that situation the viewer would be fully aware that it may be rigged, but in a procedure that didn't try to involve them and appear to try to rip them off in any way.

All it would mean is that people would discuss it and be angry at Cowell for making the 'wrong' decision. In much the same way viewers shake their fists at Alan Sugar on 'The Apprentice' for making a wrong decision.

Once you take money out of the equation the entire context is changed.
I think any viewers who get angry at these things are angry at the methods and tricks that these shows use to try to extract money out of them.

Don't forget 'Soapstar Superstar' either.

They were taking viewers' votes and completely ignoring them altogether, and the show put through acts who they wanted to put through anyway regardless of the votes.

People should be doing time for some of these scams.
If it was you or I we'd get ten years.

I don't believe the act coming on last gets more votes because they are still fresh in the mind' I think they are already still fresh in the mind from the first auditions. I don't believe they become the favourite by putting them on last. I believe they are put on last because they are ALREADY the favourite.

In any case, the act that goes through are the ones that the public voted to put through. I certainly wouldn't just vote for the last one because they are still fresh in the mind. I would vote for whoever I thought was best on the night and I'm sure most other peole would too.

Whether people believe the publi were manipulated or not, the best acts get through. can't anyone just enjoy it all for the entertainment any more?

I believe the best act is saved for last to keep people watching and it's paid off so far as they have come out top in the ratings.

But popularity will normally translate into votes, and unpopularity will usually fail to. IMO, Hope weren't going to win X Factor even if they went on last every week and starred in a prime time mini-series.

But how much of the difference is made by putting them on last? When you say "I'm sure that the judges are well aware of the fact that putting a favoured act on last translates into lots of votes", it sounds like you think they know that putting an act last has a big effect. But then you say "just being last in itself probably wouldn't make a lot of difference" it becomes clear (I think) that you didn't mean that. So perhaps we don't actually disagree about much there.

I think that the people who make tv shows try to make a show that will be popular, get a lot of buzz in the media, and so on; and that can be seen as trying to influence viewers, which can in turn be considered trying to manipulate them.

That can be hard to distinguish from other cases that are more objectionable, such as ones where there's some other motive and ones where a desire to have an exciting final, and a winner that will make people feel good about the show, shades over into trying to get particular acts to the final using underhand means. The same issue comes up with Big Brother and many other shows.

Putting an act on last, and "seeding" acts so they don't compete against each other until near the end, might be done with no other motive than making a good show. Or they may be playing to how they believe the public thinks, rather than trying to lead the public into liking acts they normally wouldn't.

I'm not quite willing to give them the benefit of the doubt, but at least so far as putting HMs on last is concerned, I think something a bit more like a smoking gun is needed to bring them down.

Its perfectly reasonable to have the best acts apportioned between the various semi finals - how good would the final be if all the best acts had knocked each other out in the semi final?

Just because the act that the producer expects to be most popular has been on last doesn't mean that the public had to vote for them. We were free to vote for who we liked and perhaps we voted for them because they were the best. There have been performers from early in the running order who came in the 2nd/3rd spot for the judges to choose from (Kate & Gin, for example) so we managed to vote for people we liked regardless of running order.

But things like putting something last can make a difference. For example, there are experiments with people trying to remember items from a list that it's easier to remember items near the start or end than to remember ones in the middle.

IIRC, there are also experiments on how many items people can remember in "short term memory", which I think is (interestingly enough) something like 7.

If there are "position effects" in this show, it may be that the biggest effect is negative (rather than helping them) and is putting someone 3rd or 4th.

So I think people should be aware that such things can matter. What's difficult is getting from that to figuring out how much of a difference such effects are having in this show.

Last means Best. Simple. First means Worst.

There was an audience in the shows, so maybe he was referring to that. And Simon's favourites don't always win - his over the top praise often does them more harm that good.

Which is one of the things I believe works against the whole theory. There is a pattern that acts the judges and producers want in the final are also going through. Like Strike and Kate and Gin, for example.


But they are also "big acts" as perceived by this forum. It's a wider judgement, not just who they fancy one night (or else Madonna, with all her hype and "pimp" slot at the auditons would have been out last).

Hope are a good example. Did they not totally prove that being last in the running order or hyped by Cowell gets you nowhere if the public don't like you?

So many suggestions are so impractical for a TV show. Everyone performs for the same length of time to the second. Everyone is featured to the same length of time at the auditions. Acts just peform in a random order. Judges don't comment until all the acts have performed. Acts are just randomly assigned to semi-finals. It's all very easy to say when you are just trying to find fault and be cynical. It's not practical when running a TV show.

You end up with a final that shows no improvement on talent from the semi-finals and with the Cheeky Monkeys meant to bring the house down and keep viewers watching and probably 3 dancing acts in a row.

It can't be perfect. My point is simply that the performance order is being used to make for the most entertaining show, not to "shoehorn" someone into the final (because they are going to get there anyway).

Tonight I'd put Faryl last with a big song (for entertainment purposes, not to make her win), but I don't think that even begins to guarantee her a victory. Every act is now well known to the audience and it's going to come down to performance.

The core reason for the acts that go last getting to the final is because the acts that perform last are the best. If running order was really all it was hyped up to be then the producers wouldn't be putting Per Diem second from last or Kate and Gin and Strike out second. There isn't a single act that performed second from last in tonights final.

I wouldn't be surprised to see some of the best going out first tonight. Signature combine the energetic start the show needs with recognition and would be likely to hold some of that audience that might just have flicked onto BGT in the ten minutes before Doctor Who. Other contenders for the first slot are Nemesis and Cheeky Monkeys (a bad move if they do that), I think.

IIRC, the ratings for Doctor Who and Casualty show little difference at the moment, so it shouldn't be a deciding factor. But they will have a big act out at about 7.45pm in case anyone flicks between DW and Casualty.On X Factor last year, it was always Rhydian, Same Difference or Niki that performed at the time when SCD was finishing.

Naturally by 7.45pm, the show is building to a climax anyway so most of what comes after will be those with a shot at winning. Also the possibility of a more "light" act before Faryl (assuming she last). Escala could potentially do that while building the atmosphere or Signature, Strike or Kate and Gin.


First doesn't mean worst. The first slot is always about offerring something to open the show in a loud, bright and often colourful manner (hence the high proportion of dance troupes).

But my point was that 'Hope' were perceived as popular by the judges, who insisted on trying to reinforce that perception over several weeks.
It was literally weeks before they decided they were onto a non-starter and 'let them go'.

My point is that I don't think the judges should be looking at certain acts in terms of choosing favourites because it corrupts the process of competition in one way or another.

Some people won't care. Good luck to them, they can throw all their money at these shows if they want to.
But my personal opinion is that I think it's unfair on many acts, and the way that the editorial content is planned literally forces perceptions across of certain acts being better than others even if it's all subjective.

It's all corrupted as soon as they start engineering outcomes based on their own perceptions. Obviously the judges will have personal opinions and can express them.
But I think they should just judge, and that's it.
Often it's overkill and it feels so corrupt and forced in the manner in which they try to contrive public perception with their hyperbole and hard sell techniques.

This hasn't been proven. Every night the act that the producers believed would be most popular has performed last in the show. Every night, the act that performed last has won the popular vote. However, it is to be expected that the most popular act would win the popular vote. That the (predicted) most popular act should win the popular vote does not prove that being the final performer creates popularity.

The only way to prove that performing last conveys advantage would be to have the acts selected in a genuinely random manner - for example, asking audience members to draw names from a hat. If, under those circumstances, the last-performing act always won the vote then you could conclude that being last on the programme will make an act win.

It seems they went out of their way to dispell the theories tonight. Probably worried that any victory for Faryl or Escala would be overshadowed by the Sunday papers fix claims.