Just leave it up to expert judges ?

No! It would just be Come Dancing with celebrities!

Well in a word, no.
It would be D-U-double L.

And where are the expert judges coming from?

Providing they got a decent set of judges. Get rid of that muppet Len for starters!

Nope. Viewing figures would go down and it would be axed.

Next question?

No...it's a game opera...and one of the best. The public vote is an essential feature in the success of the genre.

Both the judges scoring system and the televote need to be looked at now....but retaining an appropriately balanced combination of the two is vital.

Without the public voting there is absolutely no point and I certainly wouldn't watch again.

The public vote makes the whole thing unpredictable, and it makes the show ours, we can have an impact and therefore we are more invested in the show overall. I think the balance is just right although I'd rather the dance off go.

After this year with Tom and JS

Yes....

"Dull?"
If watching well-known people mastering dancing is dull, why watch the programme anyway?
Do viewers REALLY need the thrill of phoning to make it interesting?
Really?
Alan

maybe they should do what they do in the US with some of their voting shows & only allow X amount of phones calls per phone number

... only if you want it to be scheduled on a tuppeny ha'penny satellite channel at 3am.

Yes, the phone vote makes the show interesting and engaging, these boards would be empty without it.

Very patronising. I consider my wrists well and truly slapped.

You're having a laugh - right?!

The judges' attitude to the audience vote from John Sergeant onwards plunged the programme into a pitch battle between them and the public.

Last night, after their ineptitude (and the producers') last week, the judges got smacked down - twice. Just as they should.

Changes are desperately needed - to the judging panel and to the choice of dance for the dance-off when we reach the two-dance stage of the competition.

But getting rid of the public vote would just alienate viewers and have people switching off in droves.

The final we should have had last night was Austin vs Tom - but, under the circumsances, a Tom victory was the next best thing.

Good God, no! We would have ended up with Lisa as winner


Absolutely but they tried their darndest to get the winner they wanted. Eliminating Austin instead of Lisa was the most absurd decision yet, and there have been some. Who do think would have been eliminated if there had been a dance-off last week? I doubt it would have been Lisa. If they'd had their chance last night, they would have ensured she at least made the final two. The only way they could influence this to an extent was by giving her the ridiculously high marks they gave her (10s FFS) and hoping for the best.

Well it might save me some money. I voted like a maniac last night to make sure that the best dancers won, but it didn't work.

and what a wonderful result that would have been for some of us

Maybe after her 'perfect' 80......but not after that shambolic show dance!

Yes, it would be better without public voting, how many individuals voted 20, 30, 40+ times? How is that democratic? The only way for viewer voting to be fair would be if repeat calls could be stopped.

The opportunity to "participate" in the show by means of voting is what hooks the viewers.

The GBP LIKE the interaction and the opportunity to rectify what they see as wrongs or endorse rights inflicted on the contestants by the so called "expert" panel, only one of whom has any qualifications to justify his seat on that panel.

The judges take themselves far too seriously

No.

The public can be fickle and don't always do you want them to do, but they are an essential part of the show.

Futhermore, the couples would perform for the judges and not for us if we were not directly involved.

Strictly Come Dancing never claimed it would have a democratic voting policy. It was sold to the public on a vote for your favourite, and had an expert panel to counterbalance. It's not a political party, it's a light entertainment show. Telling the public that they may only cast one vote per person is telling the public what to do, and given this last series, it's a fairly educated guess as to what the public will do. And I wouldn't like to be in the position of telling a child who has fallen for Jodie or Alesha or any contestant who they love seeing on Strictly, that they can't vote to try to save their favourite because only one vote is allowed.

And the license payers wouldn't take kindly to any increase in their fee, for the BBC to be able to implement that kind of change.

Off the top of my head, the only celebrity learn another skill show that doesn't have a public vote is Celebrity MasterChef - and that airs early evening weekdays on BBC2 with very little fanfare - even though there does seem a large cross over of contestants between the 2 shows. The DS CMC talking place is in just one thread over on the television forum.

I would imagine that taking away the public vote would lead to pretty much the same sort of scheduling for SCD in the long run.

Well Masterchef is a lot different. They can't really send out samples of cooking to several million people to vote on now can they!

Doesn't stop them asking people to vote for dancing when you can't see their feet though

And of course, the MasterChef judges are their to help and guide and taste the food for us (in Mr Wallace's case, with a very large spoon and more than once )