American Idol Vote Controversy Proves Fox Should Release Totals After Competition is Done

A few over-excited Arkansas AT&T employees gave fans of American Idol finalist Adam Lambert something new to grouse about, helping supporters of winner Kris Allen place "power texting" votes for him during the singing competition's widely-watched finale.

They also provided a another argument for something I've been advocating since the show's second season: A public release of the show's vote totals for review, once the season is done.

The Arkansas Democrat Gazette and the New York Times reported that staffers at AT&T -- a big Idol sponsor -- provided free text-messaging services at two parties supporting Allen in Arkansas.

(Another item for media wonks to consider; the Arkansas paper's story rests behind a pay wall -- it wasn't until the New York Times amplified the reporting in a story which could be widely linked on the Internet that Idol producers and AT&T issued statements. So do you want to get paid for stories, or do you want to have an impact?)

The Hollywood Reporter did the math, concluding that, if the 80 or so cell phones supposedly distributed by AT&T staffers were used to vote for him throughout the May 19 performance show, he would get a maximum of 96,000 text-messaged votes -- hardly enough to sway a competition that Fox said attracted 100 million responses.

Of course, since vote totals are not released to the public, we only have Idol's word that there were 100 million votes, or that their screening process filtered out bulk voting, or that the margin between the finalists was big enough that 100,000 or so votes wouldn't matter, anyway.

I understand why votes totals aren't released during the show; they would skew the competition by telegraphing which contestants are more popular than the others.

But once the competition is done, there seems to be little problem in releasing vote totals for the finalists, broken down by week, so the public could see how the competition progressed.

I'm not holding my breath on this one. But given the intense public interest -- and laws on the books against manipulating game shows -- there seems to be a potent argument for pushing Fox to disclose how its voting totals played out.

Comments

[pisces0223]

Kris is liked more huh? Is that why Adam has over 15,000 members on his official website and Kris only has 3,000. Is that why Adam's cd debuted higher on Billboard than Kris. Is that why today Adams cd is #2 on Itunes and Kris is #12? Is that why Adam has 11 of the top 20 videos on Itunes and Kris has 2. Is that why Kris single has dropped from #1 to #5 in one day. I'm sure if Adam had an original single out he would be high on the song chart also. Adm completely outshined Kris on their tv appearances the last few days. I would hate to be Kris at the AI concert having to follow Adam after he rips up the stage. Can't wait for those reviews to start coming in.

[MiraMcB]

I know. Its laughable, really. Kris is ok, but fronting the whole American Idol tour for this season? Yikes! Its going to be embarrassing.

AI needs to get right with the fans on the voting and fix that damn thing. I know they just LOVE to have Ryan get up there and say, "We had 100 million votes last night!!!", but, really, who cares about that besides them? It means nothing when you have every little tween between New York and Seattle wearing blisters on their fingers. It would mean a whole lot more to me if they said we got 3 million votes and x million went to so-and-so, etc. Credibility.

As for this mess with Kris' votes... wow. Everyone knows what went down. It all comes under the heading of "how stupid do you really think we are?".

[IntrepidReader]

I agree that the author's notion of 96,000 text votes isn't anywhere close to an accurate number. If just the 80 phones were used with the method that helpful AT&T employees taught them, the number would have been 480,000. Of course that doesn't count all the people who already had AT&T phones and saw how to use them to power text. It's not like the two "voting parties" were comprised of 40 people at each party who didn't cell phones, there were hundreds of fans at each event, most of whom would have already had AT&T phones since it's well-known that those are needed for text voting.

I predict power texting will be responsible for the eventual demise of the show, as viewers realize that the main premise of being able to choose their favorite to win by voting has been effectively negated by a relatively small number of dedicated (crazy) people who can generate millions of votes from a few thousand phones.

[MiraMcB]

I agree. The supposed "math" doesn't hold up, especially when you consider that they were voting across all time zones instead of just being confined to the two hours for their own time zone. Some very fishy stuff here.

[karenotto]

It is possible to release the voting results, at least as far as the franchise owner is concerned. The German Idol program, Deutschland Sucht Den Superstar, releases the voting results after each season.
This year the German winner won with just 50.47 percent of the votes.
Search on DSDS voting, or look at this link: http://www.tv-tipps.net/7721/dsds-2009-die-voting-ergebnisse-der-6-staffel/

[klrOhio]

look, the voting wasn't even close. That HAS been reported. Not everyone likes Adam, the AI masters be damned. As Lambert himself said, there is no way a handful of overeager AT&T employees, handing out a few cell phones, was going to sway the vote totals. It was total conspiracy theory rubbish, pushed on the Idol blogs and message boards. The New York Times simply bit.

I've heard everything after this finale: the voting was rigged; FOX didn't want a supposedly gay Idol as the face of the TV show; AT&T employees did it.

You know, maybe the obvious is true: more people simply liked Kris Allen. Ta-da.

[ladydragon]

Eric,
I dosen't matter who voted for who, whether AT&T and Cingulair are part of Bell South or any of that crap or how much cheating the phone company and American Idol did. Someone stood to profit from the last two contestants, they would have hoped it would be the gay guy, but it didn't turn out that way. Simon decided who was going to be the winner early on, it's just that it didn't turn out that way. It wasn't that way in the beginning, just look at Ruben Studderd and Fantasia, Jennifer Hudson was a contestant she didn't win but she has won several awards recognizing her talents, look at Carrie Underwood and the guy that has a band with a CD out now. American Idol is now tainted, no one should watch the show anymore, the lies and cheating ruined everything.

[CTdave]

I truly believe that AI didn't reveal on the final show the difference in votes was between Kris and Adam because the votes weren't close. They did not want to damage Adam's reputation -- AI wants to promote Adam and make a lot of money from his albums.

[RadicalRuss]

American Idol will never release the voting totals. To do so would show:

A) Texting counts for far more of the votes than phoning. In four hours of voting, how many busy signals will you get before recording a vote? In four hours of power texting, however, there are no busy signals.

B) Texting is only available to AT&T Subscribers, with coverage and users concentrated in the South (see AT&T map http://tr.im/mIGZ vs. Verizon map http://tr.im/mIGW, remember also that AT&T is the former Cingular, which was Bell South and SBC http://tr.im/mIGR)

C) People might put 2+2 together when they realize that of 16 Idol finalists, ten were from the South vs. none from the Northeast, 3 were from Alabama vs. only 2 from California, and six of eight winners are from the South.

Seacrest saying, "THIS.... is Confederate Idol!" would be more accurate. The South has risen again. Fortunately, they only control televised singing competitions and college football.

[Charity]

one phone: one vote. release the voting totals. i've been advocating this from season one. with the advent of texting, this skewers totals even more since now it is revealed that bulk texting can be accomplished with one push of a button. so, eliminate text votes. but correct me if i am wrong, texting makes money, doesn't it? so not likely it will be stopped.

the fcc should at least pretend to investigate the advertiser influence on the voting for this year. doesn't matter if someone "says" it didn't influence the outcome. that's not the issue. the issue is tampering with the results of a game show.

AI should be required to pony up results and how they are tabulated - that's a lot of votes to tabulate. how do they do it? it should be made crystal clear. the only thing viewers have now is DialIdol, which comes rather close to actual results, but is not affiliated with AI.

and finally, if at&t wanted to have a "fair" result, wouldn't they have tutored fans of adam lambert, too?

[masha2008]

agree on fcc. how does one get the ball rolling if fcc is to investigate?

[Tagrid]

Forget the FCC - they don't consider "reality shows" to be "game shows" - so don't consider AI to be held to the same standard as game shows.

One vote per phone# or IP# would be ideal - but it's never gonna happen. AI makes TONS of $$ in kickbacks from ATT - a percentage of each call and each text vote. The more votes the better - and they don't really care how they come in.

Total transparancy (numbers of votes by week, by state, by landline and by text for each contestant) would be nice, but don't hold your breath!

[jcwtts1]

Here is the problem with the math, of course it was a boiler room. this was in his home town, supposedly his friends and family and supporters. Once you show them how to power text, something I had never heard of, they pass it on to their friends, their friends pass it on to their friends, by the end of the first hour, the number of people power texting isn't 80 it is 800. That 800 using the same math becomes not 96000 a really low estimate in my opinion but 960,000, or the margin of victory.

J

[masha2008]

i dont know how the hollywood reporter got to 96,000 votes but in my estimate of

100 people
2 power texts/minute
4 hours

2 power texts X 10 texts X 60 minutes X 4 hours X 100 pax = 480,000 or about half a million votes

that's if the were able to send at least 2 powertexts per minute. i think i can send more than that.

that's a lot.

idol now says that the voting wasnt even close as gokey fans went for kris. IT DOESNT MATTER. they still need to release the stats. how many really were votes made from arkansas.

idol has a stake in this, in that they can possibly and partially explain why the other winners careers bombed after they won on idol. they should adjust voting rules accordingly to reflect the true sentiment of the viewers instead of trying to pad interest in their show with skewed voting results.

[Fletch17C]

Even before AT&T owned up to the fact that its employees had taught some people how to power text (i.e., cheat), the number of votes Seacrest reported each week didn't sound right. Supposedly, more votes were cast this season than any other, yet the Nielson reports state that viewship for Idol was down this year and that the finale was one of the lowest rated in the show's history. So...fewer people are watching, but more people are voting? What's up with that?

I suspect there will never be a fool-proof voting system, but something needs to be overhauled. Perhaps only 1 vote should be counted per phone number. Then again, AT&T wants those texting fees, so they would never agree to that.

[Tagrid]

Uh, no - more PEOPLE aren't voting - the people who DO vote are just voting more (i.e. making the decision for the rest of us).

In the past year, more people have learned to text, and now they know how to "power text" - so now more votes are being logged - not more viewers, not more voters.

ATT had no choice by to own up to what their employees did, cuz an Arkansas newspaper reported on the parties, and on the ATT employees attending and bringing phones - that's how the NYTimes picked up on the story, about a week later. How many phones were given to how many people hasn't really been said, as far as I know.

It's not only ATT that wants those text voting fees, AI also wants THEIR percentage of each vote.

It woud be easy for them to set it up so that only one vote per phone# or IP# could be registered, but it's never gonna happen. Not only would that seriously cut their revenue, but think how bad AI would look when they announce that they had 24 million viewers, but only 2.5 million total votes. Face it, most people don't vote.

The ideal setup would be if our TVs were all interactive and the only way to vote would be to push a button on our remotes. There would be more watcher participation that way, and only one vote per TV would be counted.

[JellyRoll1981]

The following is from the AT&T website's news section...­.

AT&T Announces the Eighth Season of 'American Idol' Smashes All-Time Record for Fan Engagement through Text Messaging

A new judge, a new “judges’ save” — and new milestones in fan engagement with AMERICAN IDOL. AT&T* reported today that more than 178 million text messages crossed its network as fans interacted with the country’s No. 1 TV show this season — the highest total for any season and more than double the 78 million messages AT&T reported last year.

That's interestin­g.....But not as much as this tidbit.

"More than twice as many AT&T customers played weekly Idol Trivia via text this season versus last.
The number of AT&T customers who opted in to receive voting number reminders—a weekly text message listing all of the IDOLs and their voting numbers—was 70 percent higher than last season; fans who opted in for vote number reminders this season sent nearly twice as many text votes than did the overall voting population­."

Why is this so interesting?

Reread this part...

"was 70 percent higher than last season; fans who opted in for vote number reminders this season sent nearly twice as many text votes than did the overall voting population­."

Am I wrong...or are they saying that twice as many votes were cast using text as phone votes?

Where the HELL is the F.C.C.?

[klrOhio]

uh, NO. They are saying that, compared to the US voting population, Idol fans sent nearly twice as many votes. Not atypical for Idol at all.