Thursday, May 18, 2006

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Quick Idol stuff...

Ok, so we knew it was a tight race right? But can you believe the numbers Seacrest put up there last night? The contestants were all within less than 1% of each other?
1st 33.68 %
2nd 33.26%
3rd 33.06%

Hubby did the math, and based on the 50 million votes Ryan said were clogging the switchboards, 114,000 votes seperated first and second. That is statistically insignificant.

Apparently, not everyone believes that though, according to Reality TV Magazine.com. Some fans think this was Idol's way of putting to bed the controversy over Chris' ouster, by showing how close the votes are. However there was a somewhat disconcerting explaination:

As unbelievable as the percentages might sound, there is one explanation that could explain them, which might not be too pleasing to American Idol fans. A frequent complaint among American Idol viewers is that they encounter busy signals while attempting to vote for their favorite singer. A Reality TV Magazine reader named Terri recently wrote in to tell us, “Do you realize how unfair it is, to the viewer participants, who are trying to vote, and to continually get some sort of busy sound or message? These are intended votes for the contestant.” Could the vote percentages be so close because the phone lines are being flooded and each contestant is getting the maximum amount of votes that can get through? If this is the case, then it could certainly go a long way in explaining all the surprise eliminations.

Earlier this year, American Idol executive producer Ken Warwick denied that there were problems with the phone lines at national levels, but he did admit to possible problems at the local switchboard level. Warwick stated “A lot of the problems have not been genuine, you know, that have been published. There is never any congestion at national grid system level. The only time there is any congestion is at local switchboard level, and that’s going to happen, there’s nothing I can do..” Could it be that the next American Idol will be decided based on which American Idol finalist has the best local switchboard systems in their home state?

Anyway, Elliot is far from done, so I am not going to be too sad.

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So this is my 199th post on Blogger. I really should write something significant or of substance in honor of it, no? I'm suddenly thinking of the song "Psycho Killer" by the Talking Heads.
"You're talking a lot, but you're not saying anything" Oh, and on a related note, I never knew that "talking head" was as an actual reference to something until I heard it used recently in an interview on NPR. LOL

The sun was out today, yet more showers tonight. It better not be raining tomorrow because I will have no vegetables if I never get a chance to plant them in the ground! I have to put up the edging and fence tomorrow before I can plant anything.

Big family weekend planned. Date with hubby tomorrow night, soccer game and gymnastics show on Sat, and mor soccer on Sun. I plan to cook and relax in between. Oh! and catch up on 24 and House. I have been avoiding everyone's blogs because I am afraid to glimpse anymore tidbits.

4 comments:

Kelly said...

thanks for listing the %'s

krysten said...

i miss gymnastics... which one of yours is into it again? the middle one?? what level is he on?

i think this is the last time i'm watching american idol. its starting to suck. and the people who "win" arent really going anywhere, i mean they seem to be almost famous, but just kind of in that "novelty" way. Kelly is the only one that seems to have "made it". dont you think?

Bored Housewife said...

Hey, congrats on 200!!!

It's planting time for me, too...I'll wish some sun for you.

Leesa said...

Before I read the quote, I thought that perhaps the percentages were because of max number of calls through the lines. Funny thing is that perhaps this just measures who is more efficent at voting.