American Idol Producers and AT&T Respond to Text Gate!

sweet jesus, thank god somebody stepped in to stop the madness…and do the freakin math!!!

What does This dog donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t hunt mean?

This is hilarious. Like Adam said, this is much ado about nothing. People are funny. LOL This isn’t going to change people’s minds any. Those of us who have lives won’t care, those who think the voting is rigged will continue to think so and Kris fans will be defensive and cry sore loser.

It doesn’t matter much. Kris is still the American Idol, and a large portion of the public don’t believe the vote toals are legit. I hope this ends the story and we can all move on though. geez…. lol

If I was AT&T, I wouldn’t attend anyone’s party next year, and AI still needs to do something with the voting method.

And we end up exactly where we started…… lol

I knew this was nonsense. I can’t believe the NYT published a story that was totally false. And it’s scary to see how misconstrued a story can get. Some were saying that the margin was less than one million votes (the totals haven’t been released and the one million margin was from the week before) and others were claiming that power-texting was against the rules (it’s not) and still others that AT&T was hosting lavish parties and handing out thousands of phones with free text messaging. Oh the humanity!

Oh, and the Arkansas newspaper that broke the story was the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, not the Arkansas Post-Democrat…still can’t get the story straight, I guess…

I’m glad (and a little surprised actually) that Fox released a statement about this. Guess they’ve decided to finally pimp Kris now…J/K.

Letà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s say there were indeed 80 free power-text phones in play. And suppose each was used to vote once per minute by Allen partygoers while they watched the two-hour à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“American Idolà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  telecast (keep in mind this was AT&T staffers demoà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ing phones at a party, not an underground Allen voting boiler room). Thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s 9,600 text messages. And suppose each voter sent 10 votes for Allen each time. That would give Allen 96,000 votes.

by Allen partygoers while they watched the two-hour à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“American Idolà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  telecast

The once per minute thing doesn’t really fly. How many times can you hit resend in one minute?

But I still think Kris won based on Dial Idol, which isn’t influenced by text voting.

ETA..Where do they get the two hour time frame? Wasn’t it four hours for voting.?

I really, really hope that this is the end of it. I hate the whole thing. It makes everyone look bad. :/

This is what happens when you live in a democracy. Everyone is on the look out for corruption. Guess its a good sign. :doh_tb:

sonyab:

Some dogs are used for hunting in the United States. They go off and bring back the dead birds that have been killed by the hunters. These dogs are called “bird dogs” or “hunting dogs”.

So when you say “that dog won’t hunt”, you are talking about a broken dog or, more generally, an idea that isn’t going to work or is totally illogical.

Not exactly where we started. Because of the new cycle, now all of America is convinced, more than ever, that Adam was robbed.

What else could the AI producers say? Could you imagine the backlash if they admitted there was any truth to this story. Bottom line, we’ll never know for sure.

This happens every year! People say this person was robbed! The show is rigged! This is taking it on another level. Crazy!

Thank goodness.

hwc says

sonyab:

Some dogs are used for hunting in the United States. They go off and bring back the dead birds that have been killed by the hunters. These dogs are called à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“bird dogsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  or à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“hunting dogsà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ .

So when you say à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“that dog wonà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t huntà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ , you are talking about a broken dog or, more generally, an idea that isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t going to work or is totally illogical.
===============================
Oh okay gotcha!!! thanks hwc. Makes sense now.

I was wondering when AI was going to come out of hiding and finally admit that Kris really did win this thing. Kris deserved that validation if nothing else and yes I’m finally glad to see that someone knows how to add. lol

Don’t for a minute think Dial Idol isn’t broken. It registered every phone call I made for six hours the last two weeks as a completed vote, despite the fact that I never even made it to the Idol busy signals, instead getting local phone company “all circuits are busy” responses. Dial Idol counts all of those as votes.

Not that I care that much about this issue but I agree with undercooked the math doesn’t add up. If you can register 10 text messages for each text sent then the number increases. If you add to it that the average teenager can definitely send more than one test a minute. (Any parent knows this) then it is pretty easy to conclude that more than 9,600 text messages were sent. I think that the controversy can only help Adam and I’m all for that. I think that they are both great and deserve all the success. They both were great week after week, completely out-shining all the other competitors (although not Allison)

so in other news Barca wins the Champions League 2:0 to Manchester United… ;D

it’s good for hits on your site though MJ!

What else could the AI producers say?

Anything Idol says falls into one of two categories:

a) Yes, we at Fox have stopped beating our wives like the NY Times says.

b) No, we at Fox have not stopped beaiting our wives like the NY Times says.

I still don’t care about this (even if AT&T was “cheating” — if you don’t like it, don’t watch and don’t vote), think Kris winning was legit (he got more votes — it’s how they win), but THR has faulty math. They must hang with Kara. lol

Kris fans are being total jerks to Adam when Adam and his fans have been so respectful. No negatives on IDF are ever allowed about Kris on Adam boards. This crap just continues to hurt Adam, not Kris. Kris is winning on everything and it is evident he is the rightful winner. I think Adam is in real trouble for a career now. I do think Adam has a lot more fans who don’t power vote and that he may have more people that voted for him, but Kris has the more powerful fanbase.

At least Adam has Broadway. Kris and his fans can then continue to make fun of him even though I think Broadway is a very good and respectable job. I’d love to do it. Kris will be much bigger than Cook.

What else could the AI producers say? Could you imagine the backlash if they admitted there was any truth to this story. Bottom line, weà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ll never know for sure.

..and what else could AT&T say? But it doesn’t matter. Kris wears the crown and Adam is fine.

What I find fuckin ¨’ amazing is that people are whipped up into a frenzy about this.

I wanted Adam to win too…for whatever reasons he didn’t. It certainly isn’t the end of Adam’s music career. He is a household name and I am sure he will capitalize on it.

MJ,

First, the real issue is not that this was the only power voting going on – I’m sure Adam fans are just as guilty. But having the corporate sponsors helping people break the posted rules? When you get caught speeding, how great is the excuse that the 10 cars around you were speeding as well. And if the cops got caught telling some people it was ok to speed…?

Also, I am a AI texting novice, but it’s a joke that it takes 1 minute to send 1 text message. Once you get the first one formatted, everyone who has voted this way knows you can press the button to send a vote at least every 10 seconds. 10 votes per text every 10 seconds is 60 per minute, 3,600 per hour, for FOUR hours that night, not two hours, so per person with the free text phones, easily 14,400 votes. With 80 phones, that comes to 1,152,000 votes. Not counting the fact that others sitting around the stadium (implies quite a few people) who had AT&T phones of their own also learned to power text that night and helped with extra votes.

Adam is gracious, and Kris always credits Adam’s talent. The results won’t be changed, but it doesn’t seem right to just dismiss the feelings of a lot of fans that felt Adam got a bad rap from people like Bill O’Reilly in the weeks leading up to the finale. We Glamberts knew Gokey’s votes were going to Kris, and so did Adam it seems. But I don’t like sanctioned rule breaking, no matter the number of votes.

Well, “fair, accurate and verified”, that about sums it up!

And AT&T even has Fox News beat there because they are definitely not verified.

To paraphrase the old Shakespearean trope, “Idol’s corporate lackeys doth protest too much, methinks.”

Kris Allen will wear the albatross of public skepticism around his neck for the duration of his Idol reign. And to think all of this started with some idiot state politician making numbers up out of thin air and sticking them up on a government run blog. Simply nuts.

Cell Coverage across the US with AT&T

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/

Since we know that a good portion of votes are from text voting and go phones..

If you look at the map you can see that the WEST has less coverage, therefore few subscribers and in the end NO text voters. Now go and take a look at the GO Phone situation. Same but worse. Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m not sure why the Go Phones actually show less coverage as the cell phones, but I wonder if this doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t mean that there are fewer cell phones sold in the areasà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦ and again it is in the WEST, but more widespread.

In my area, a northern state, there is no AT&T coverage, so no text voting or using a go phone. A contestant from my state would have very little chance.

I have read on several sites that 7 out of the 8 winners have been from the south.

Hopefully that puts an end to it. Please let that put an end to it. This text-gate BS does nobody any good.

Kris won. Good for him! Now we can wait for the tour and their albums in the fall!

Goodie. I’m hoping now we can stop talking about this. A small portion of fans with a bad case of bittercakes should not make news.

I feel pretty confident that Adam would be appalled at some vocal minority trying to tarnish his good friend’s win with this crap. It’s not like these crazy ideas go mainstream anyway. It’s usually just about 15 nutters posting the same shit over and over and over again.

sigh, you know the only true winner of this story? damn NY Times which is about to collapse any minute because they are broke, getting this publicity! they don’t care about facts- they just want the controversy and people wonder why the newspaper business is failing.

Also, thanks MJ for being the voice of reason! I read your stuff on ABC news too. =)

so in other news Barca wins the Champions League 2:0 to Manchester Unitedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦ ;D

Yeah! My daughter and hubby were just watching! Go Barca! The Barca team is one good looking group of men!

First, I am not a crazy Adam fan trying to undermine Kris. That being said, the assumption of the 80 phones producing 96,000 votes power voting in the x10 fashion assumes 1 vote a minute, when it should be mote like 10 a minute creating 960,000 votes. The assumption was also using 2 hours of voting when it was four hours of voting, which gets you to over 1.8 million votes. Don’t forget, they taught people who did not have free phones how to do the x10 method.

The bottom line is this: due to technology, the Idol voting system is broken. Hopefully this newscycle on abuse will bring about a change to the kooky voting methods now in place.

Whatever….but keep in mind that you can vote a lot more than once per minute. We voted (I should say dialed since we rarely got through) at least 6 times per minute. And voting was for 4 hours. So the THR vote estimate is way too low.

As a dedicated Adam fan, I’m thinking of Adam and Kris in all this and just hope AI and all its sponsors get their acts together. However I would love to see the voting limited to a certain number of votes/texts from each phone number so the power texting, DialIdol, etc can be eliminated.

think Adam is in real trouble for a career now. I do think Adam has a lot more fans who donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t power vote and that he may have more people that voted for him, but Kris has the more powerful fanbase.

At least Adam has Broadway. Kris and his fans can then continue to make fun of him even though I think Broadway is a very good and respectable job. Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢d love to do it. Kris will be much bigger than Cook.

Were you serious here or being sarcastic? Seriously.

I think Kris could be quite big in country…not so much elsewhere, but time will tell. He ¨’s not very unique, you know.

Goodness. Nobody cares about the silly title. It will always be about Adam’s sexuality and him being non-christian. Every commentator and radio person I’ve heard has talked about this and all said everyone knew Danny’s votes would go to Christian Kris. This is the year of the culture wars.

But, nobody. And I mean nobody thinks that being winner or runner-up (or 4th place) means anything at all concerning a career now. Most Idol power voters are cougars and grandmas and aren’t Sony’s target audience. Most won’t buy the album from any of them. It is all about what music they put out. Frankly the odds are against all of them. Idol has only produced 3 stars – Kelly, Carrie and Daughtry. Any of the top 4 have the same potential to break out, but all have the odds very much against them. Idol is just a silly entertainment reality show to get most people through to summer.

Now let’s give Kris and Adam props for being in the finale and for their iTunes downloads and their performances on The Early Show, etc. And hey, isn’t it about time we 1) took Kradam out of textgate (LOL), and 2)
SYTYTCD is on again tonight.

I really am not getting the impression that people think Adam was robbed, at least not on this board. There was enough out there to indicate that Kris could win this. Plus I go back to Dial Idol (I don’t have the software) but it does seem to have been pretty accurate in predicting the final winners. And Kris was ahead on Dial Idol.

I think people are ticked about the AT&T sponsorship having so much control over how the AI audience votes. If AI opens up text voting to other carriers, then I think this issue would go away.

Not everyone who is annoyed with AT&T’s influence on the AI vote is a “nut job.” It is possible to acknowledge the problem with the AT&T text voting system and still believe that Kris won fair and square.

cruzceleste
May 27th, 2009 at 4:36 pm
so in other news Barca wins the Champions League 2:0 to Manchester Unitedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦ ;D

Much more interesting than textgate. Though, I was rathering hoping for Man U…

snowdogs

I have read on several sites that 7 out of the 8 winners have been from the south.

For the record, and frankly it depends on your definition of “South”:

S1 – Kelly Clarkson – Texas
S2 – Ruben Studdard – Alabama
S3 – Fantasia Barrino – North Carolina
S4 – Carrie Underwood – Oklahoma
S5 – Taylor Hicks – Alabama
S6 – Jordin Sparks – Arizona
S7 – David Cook – Missouri
S8 – Kris Allen – Arkansas

Many consider “The South” to be all those states who were members of the Confederacy…that would exclude Missouri (border or neutral state) and Oklahoma (not yet a state). However, the Oklahoma Indian Territory AND the New Mexico/Arizona territories supported the Confederacy, and though Missouri chose to stay in the Union they rejected the Union’s invasion; later an exiled secessionist gov’t was admitted into the Confederacy…it gets really complicated from there. Long story short, some historians could make the argument that ALL American Idols are from the South!

Kris fans are being total jerks to Adam when Adam and his fans have been so respectful… This crap just continues to hurt Adam, not Kris.

I’m don’t want to start getting into fan wars here, because there are no winners there but that’s not really fair. Most Kris fans I know love and respect Adam, and are just upset that yet again Kris’s win has been questioned. I think this hurts both of them, including Kris because some people will (unfairly in my eyes) always wonder if he really won. I still don’t get this theory that it was all a mastermind plot to make sure Kris won, when every sign points to Adam being TCO…

I’m glad they made a statement about it, especially since it was pretty much a lose/lose situation for them knowing that people will still say they are lying. I just wish they’d released the voting totals at the same time.

suzie, the 1.15 mil you mentioned is the worst case scenario…okay, so lets just run with that number…in a contest where 100 million votes were placed, that’s a VERY small percentage of “error”/”bad votes”. again, this is only if we are to believe this is how many votes were cast bc of the (x? amount of) free att phones.

so what rules were broken?? att giving away 20, 30, 50 phones? or teaching folks how to text/power text?

and whats wrong with learning how to power vote when adam’s OWN fan website was promoting the same?? this is nothing new to the idol world.

like adam said…much to do about nothing.

would have been a more interesting story if the person teaching folks how to power vote worked for verizon. (mobile wars!)

These parties and power voting have been going on for years, why doesn’t someone report that. At the very least I would think that some other outlet, besides THR would do the simple math. Nobody has yet to figure out that given the number of votes during the final three that Kris and Adam were in a virtual tie, so either one could have won this thing.

I think people need to change their definition of the word “star” coming from AI. Because with the economy the way it is I don’t see anyone from the show getting those kinds of numbers, not even Carrie, Kelly & Daughtry. That is unfair to everyone else esp.in the last couple of years because numbers like those aren’t happening again anytime soon or maybe ever; regardless of how good the music is.

Not exactly where we started. Because of the new cycle, now all of America is convinced, more than ever, that Adam was robbed.

No, most of America could care less.

Not everyone who is annoyed with AT&Tà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s influence on the AI vote is a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“nut job.à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  It is possible to acknowledge the problem with the AT&T text voting system and still believe that Kris won fair and square.

Thank you for your voice of reason! :exclaim_wp:

AT&T tried tacitly to diffuse this with that text traffic data for the entire season that they released (and mj linked) in the press release last week, because it clearly showed that no way 38 million text votes came out of Arkansas (and I can’t edit the earlier one it should not be OK either) during the finale, as was asserted by that politician in his blog.

However, the fact remains, that when paid employees of one of the American Idol’s flagship corporate sponsors are actively and publicly participating in supplementing ONLY the voting total for one side of what is allegedly a “competition” then, clearly, even if the actual counting of the votes is completely fair this practice still fails the test of being truly fair to both sides.

And I think AT&T (and the Idol producer) know it too.

Cell Coverage across the US with AT&T

http://www.wireless.att.com/coverageviewer/

Since we know that a good portion of votes are from text voting and go phones..

If you look at the map you can see that the WEST has less coverage, therefore few subscribers and in the end NO text voters. Now go and take a look at the GO Phone situation. Same but worse. Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m not sure why the Go Phones actually show less coverage as the cell phones, but I wonder if this doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t mean that there are fewer cell phones sold in the areasà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦ and again it is in the WEST, but more widespread.

In my area, a northern state, there is no AT&T coverage, so no text voting or using a go phone. A contestant from my state would have very little chance.

I have read on several sites that 7 out of the 8 winners have been from the south.

I’ve seen the AT&T coverage map mentioned in a couple different posts, with the argument that there is less coverage in the West, etc, and therefore this translates to an unfair advantage based on a contestant’s geographic background. I can’t help thinking that there’s a flaw in the logic, in that AT&T’s coverage seems to correspond pretty well with the population density of the various states. Sure, there are fewer areas covered in, say, Idaho than Illinois, but there are also a lot fewer people per square mile in Idaho than Illinois. It’s not like people in LA/San Fran/San Diego/etc were being shut out of AT&T coverage. Given the population of the US versus the percentage of people who actually watch Idol versus the percentage of Idol viewers who actually bother to vote versus the percentage of Idol voters that actually spend four hours on a Wednesday night texting their little thumbs off…it just seems like AT&T probably has it pretty well covered.

so in other news Barca wins the Champions League 2:0 to Manchester Unitedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦ ;D

Barà §a Barà §a! And ManU wasn’t robbed (cause we know there’s lots of robbing in that league…)

NOTICE TO AMERICAN IDOL:

Nothing to hide? Everything above board? Fine, release to vote totals. Tell us how many text votes there were and how many text votes per phone there were. If you have nothing to hide, why are you hiding EVERYTHING?

Your rules clearly state that no one shall be allowed to create batch votes by using a technological advantage. Yet you say that everything checked out as above-board? Are you saying that NO ONE “power-texted” as that is a clear violation of your rules? How can you have a pervasive clear violation of the rules and have everything be within the rules at the same time?

Either NO power-texts were allowed or YOU ARE LYING. Period.

NY Times has a chance to go after a MAJOR CORPORATION and a RED-STATER at the same time here – don’t expect them to just accept your brush-off.

Idol’s Adam Lambert downplays reports of voting irregularities”

Adam Lambert, the “American Idol” runner-up, told ABC News Radio Wednesday that media reports suggesting he may have lost because “Idol” sponsor AT&T provided free text messaging services, along with lessons on casting blocks of votes to fans of the winner Kris Allen, are much ado about nothing

http://abcnews.go.com/Entertainment/story?id=7688864&page=1

This was a stupid move on the part of the AT&T employees!

Bit my problem with the voting is the following:

You can get 10 times the votes with texting and no busies like on the phone.

AT&T has a monopoly on text voting and AT&T services are not equally distributed all over the USA with a heavy concentration of AT&T users in the States of the last AI winners and, as a lot of people will have a tendency support a local person, this could also have had a major impact on the votes more than these employees mistakes (we had the same problem in Canada, its called REGIONAL voting. (CI cancelled this year and maybe for ever).

As it means that people who want to text vote and their supplier is not AT&T have to buy AT&T products to text vote.

Text voting should be either banned or made available via ALL suppliers. You should not have to pay or buy anything to vote for you favorite singer!

I cannot vote on AI, I can only buy on iTunes and this is my way of voting for my favorite and I will continue to do so in the future.

Good luck to Adam and Kris in their future career!

The point of this issue is AT&T as a corporate sponsor should stop doing this. Their employees shld be wise enough to know that.
Of crouse, FOX would defend the winner, they will look like fools and put themselves in the awkward position. Their credibility is at stake and the ratings is not really greater than it was in the past year.

Yay for The Hollywood Reporter! Between this and their SAG contract coverage I am just loving them. I’m so glad at least one industry standard stepped in with a cool head.

I hope the outlets that ran with this insane story get some serious egg on their face, and that the reporters involved are chastised appropriately. Also glad to see Ann Powers in the comments at Idolator. I was honestly expecting her to run with this, and I’m pleasantly surprised that she saw through the BS.

If AT&T wanted to influence the outcome, they should have taken lessons from Adam Lambert’s fans and posted instructions across the Internet on how to power-vote for Kris.

Here is a Lambert site:
http://adam-lambert.org/hardcore-voting-guide/

Instead, the stupidass AT&T folks sent a few people to TWO parties with a handful of phones. Real smart. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Lambert fans across the nation were following the power-texting rules posted on Lambert sites.

The bottom line is that they need to change the voting. Older people who have the time to power vote are picking the winners. Idol is losing younger people (older teens and young professionals) because they do not have time to power vote. They realize that it’s pointless to vote 10 times when others are voting over 500.

In general, the show turned out pretty fair. But the voters and viewers are getting older and older. The show is falling. They’ve got to change the voting and then it becomes exciting to these younger people who are actual peers to the contestants and are Sony’s target audience.

Your rules clearly state that no one shall be allowed to create batch votes by using a technological advantage. Yet you say that everything checked out as above-board? Are you saying that NO ONE à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“power-textedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  as that is a clear violation of your rules? How can you have a pervasive clear violation of the rules and have everything be within the rules at the same time?

Why is this an issue now when power text votes were an issue LAST SEASON as well?

I think it’s safe to say that the AT&T folks aren’t the brighest crayons in the box. Thank God Kris didn’t have to rely on them to win it for him.

Right on babybelle32, most of America is not even aware of this so called scandal and even the ones that are aware, the ones who aren’t part of any internet fan base or Idol board, if they even absorb that story will forget about the story in about 48 hours. Quick – what were the big headlines on the news on Friday night. Yeah I can’t remember either.

The only people who think Kris has an albatross around his neck are Adam fans who haven’t accepted the result even yet or enjoy the opportunity to get in that “innocent dig”. I have no doubt that fans of all the contestants were participating in various schemes of power voting all season long as has been the case for a few years now. No one can prove to me that the powervoting was not as vigourous on both sides and through out the season, anymore than anyone can prove that Kris had any unfair advantage.

When do auditions start for Season 9?

I want to talk about Gokey wanting to perform on Dancing With The Stars. Priceless! Good luck with that…

Now AT&T is the #6 trend on twitter. lol
Of course the AT&T response won’t put an end to this discussion… and who wants to believe it’s not fair will keep doing so.

Totally agree with you johanna…you make some really good points.

I know Kris fans are taking this discussion as a putdown of their fave but for me it just seems ludicrous…not to mention grossly unfair, that AT&T employees would go near one of the contestant’s voting parties. Doesn’t matter the number of votes they got in…it isn’t right. Why would employees be involved? It just makes the whole text voting thing suspect when AT&T has a monopoly on the text voting and certain regions of the country are not covered as well as other regions.

What are the scary IDF’ers going to do now?? Still hound the media?

First, I am not a crazy Adam fan trying to undermine Kris. That being said, the assumption of the 80 phones producing 96,000 votes power voting in the x10 fashion assumes 1 vote a minute, when it should be more like 10 a minute creating 960,000 votes. The assumption was also using 2 hours of voting when it was four hours of voting, which gets you to over 1.8 million votes. Donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t forget, they taught people who did not have free phones how to do the x10 method.

The bottom line is this: due to technology, the Idol voting system is broken. Hopefully this newscycle on abuse will bring about a change to the kooky voting methods now in place.

I agree with you 100%, MrRJ. Hopefully, this will be the impetus to make much needed changes.

If the vote was really à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“not closeà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  as Billy Bush claims, then I think that they owe it to Kris to say so.

If they “owe” it to Kris to say what the margin of victory was, then they owe it to Adam to say how many votes came from Arkansas and how many were text votes.

I think that all this controversy about AT & T unfairly helping Kris can be avoided if the Producers just announce the margin of victory. Did Kris win by 10 million, 20 million, 30 million votes? Or more? Did he take 60%, 65% or 70% of the vote? This is what the producers should be saying rather than some self-serving P.R. nonsense. If the vote was really “not close” as Billy Bush claims, then I think that they owe it to Kris to say so. I can see no reason for not releasing this information. If Kris did win by a landslide, I think that it can only help their winner from a marketing standpoint to show that he crushed the person who was the perceived front-runner for most of the year.

You know this is gonna continue to grow because the “-gate” tag has been added. Whever something is declared an “anything-gate” it never goes away.

First, the real issue is not that this was the only power voting going on – Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m sure Adam fans are just as guilty. But having the corporate sponsors helping people break the posted rules? When you get caught speeding, how great is the excuse that the 10 cars around you were speeding as well. And if the cops got caught telling some people it was ok to speedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦?

It’s not against the rules to power vote. Fans of every single idol do it.

Instead, the stupidass AT&T folks sent a few people to TWO parties with a handful of phones. Real smart. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Lambert fans across the nation were following the power-texting rules posted on Lambert sites.

Well, ya know, we’re only talking about those few employees and that number of phones because that was the story that broke based on the only info available. Much like the cite you provide, for years all fan bases have been following instructions on how to maximize votes, not simply Adam’s or Kris’.

And we have no idea how many AT&T employees have been providing demo phones and tutoring regarding text voting, much less who their phones and instruction benefited. I feel quite certain that, given the fervor of fans and the size of the AI audience, this likely happened a lot with quite a few people in a number of places for all the top contestants over the season. Seems sort of natural to me.

Now that the story’s out, I suspect AT&T will institute guidelines prohibiting employees from putting corporate sponsorship behind particular contestants. And, if so, something good will have come out of all the stupidity and brohaha. We can hope that AI will respond with changes too, but I wouldn’t bet a single $ on it, as their mantra is about insanely high vote numbers, blah, blah, blah, and show popularity. And, this is a huge market testing facility for them to try and measure not only popularity, but fervor.

It is what it is. I do not believe for a second that these Ark folks affected the result. But, I agree the numbers of votes attributable to this controversy are likely much higher than the printed estimate. (Personally, I’d be way more interested in how many AT&T employees affiliated with churches, religious groups, anti-gay campaigns, and Danny Gokey attended their organized voting parties and did the same thing. LOL j/k.

I don’t think Kris’s win is the only example of the voting system being broken. That’s stupid. I’m pretty sure stuff like this happened during Season 7 and Season 8. It’s not like Adam didn’t have the same help with rabid fans and Internet people telling them about power votes, and it’s not unlikely that Adam fans also got help from AT&T people telling them how to power vote. I’m pretty sure, if anything, it was just another person telling others how to power vote, no different from how web sites told Adam fans how to vote.

Text voting should be either banned or made available via ALL suppliers. You should not have to pay or buy anything to vote for you favorite singer!

This, however, I agree with. It should be called to attention. Not everybody has an AT&T line. But to be honest, if I had AT&T lines I would’ve power texted IMMENSELY for Kris.

With all that’s been said, this thing shouldn’t be on the news. Ever. It tarnishes the show and both contestants with a likely embellished story.

I think Kris and Adam are going to do very greatly.

It is pretty obvious that the only reason this story has been covered at all is because some people want to undermine or discredit Kris’s win. Since last week they have used a wide range of arguments.

First the talking point seemed to be “Kris won because of the anti-gay vote. This is about (so called) Christian homophobia, not talent.” Thankfully, the discussion then shifted to other “controversies”.

The next claim was, “Kris won because this is Arkansas Idol, not American Idol, with 38% of the vote coming from Arkansas.” When it was shown that this number was an unsubstantiated and unsourced rumor, retracted by the media outlet that first reported it, the story shifted again.

Now it seems that people are trying to convince us that AT&T was behind Kris, flooded Arkansas with free phones, and conducted a major education drive to teach people to power-text. I am absolutely convinced that in the end it will be shown that most of this has been extremely exaggerated. I still have not seen a source for the claim that there were 80 free phones in use. I would be surprised if there were more than a couple dozen.

Of course, when it comes to the media, the correction never makes the front page. People remember the outrageous mistake for years. It is the stuff of mythology. Even if the NYT fully corrected or retracted the story tomorrow, people will be referencing this for years.

Some Adam fans seem to think that if different voting methods were put in place, the results would be different. For example, if there was a limitation on how many times each person could vote, or if power-texting did not happen.

I am convinced that Kris would have won in any case because he won the casual and tween votes with Heartless. Adam did not have a breakout performance in the last few weeks, his came too early.

Plus, whatnottosing is currently showing how there was a limit to Adam’s appeal, and Kris had a broader appeal. If Adam was not able to win over more than 40% of the viewers, for example (because his style of singing is not universally appreciated), then he could not win under any circumstance.

Kris won because more people like how he sings. Adam has a devoted following, and he will have success, but in a nationwide voting contest, I don’t think he was able to get over 50% because his style is not universally liked. With Heartless, Kris won the tween vote, and with Ain’t No Sunshine, I bet he won many casual voters. They like his music…its not because of bigotry.

Listen, I don’t think Steven Tyler could ever win American Idol either, but he can still be be a huge star. Adam fans need to accept that he probably could not win under any circumstance because not enough Americans like the rock wail…and they also need to know that Adam can still have a huge career regardless.

Kris was able to get more people to like his style of music. What else needs to be said?

(Personally, Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢d be way more interested in how many AT&T employees affiliated with churches, religious groups, anti-gay campaigns, and Danny Gokey attended their organized voting parties and did the same thing. LOL j/k.

LOL

If the show is losing the young folks, it has nothing to do with the voting method but the type of music featured on the show. Even us old folks think the song selections that the poor contestants have to choose from suck [something the judges never clearly address ergo making their comments about song selection a bit bogus] and that some of the themes are just lame.

But I think the younger kids, tweens and older teens if they bother to watch Idol do indeed have time and do powertext and powervote. After all from what the media tell us, all teens are texting 24-7. Praise the Lord for unlimited texting plans or the parents of America would be bankrupt. So a few thousand texts to Idol is nothing.

I would surmise that the majority of text voting is coming from younger not older folks.

With all thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s been said, this thing shouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t be on the news. Ever.

I disagree. When the top corporate sponsor of the most popular show in the nation has paid, on the clock, employees with their fingers on the scale of what is supposed to be a “fair” fan-determined competition it is news. The same thing could have been said about the $64,000 Question game show scandal during the late 1950′s. This is definitely news and it shouldn’t have taken a week to become news.

I think that all this controversy about AT & T unfairly helping Kris can be avoided if the Producers just announce the margin of victory. Did Kris win by 10 million, 20 million, 30 million votes? Or more? Did he take 60%, 65% or 70% of the vote?

I really believe they aren’t announcing the margin of victory because it was close. The closer the victory the more fuel that is added to the fire.

Kris fans were talking about how to power vote too. I don’t doubt that this text-gate thing is one of the reasons that Adam lost, another being Danny’s bigoted fans who were vocal about voting for Kris because he wasn’t Adam.

Either way, Adam’s fansite wasn’t supplying people with phones to power vote with. AT&T did do that. They gave them phones and told them how to powervote for Kris.

Let’s keep the discussion polite. I’ll be editing and deleting posts that don’t follow my guidelines.

The NYT is nothing but a glorified Globe rag mag any more. They have lost all credibility. They are ready to go under. They have long ago ceased to be a credible source of news with absolutely no journalistic integrity.

All fans were power text voting, but Adam fans can’t accept the fact that he didn’t win. He was in the bottom 3 one week and so was Kris. Gokey was the only one never to have been in the bottom 3 until he went home. Wonder why his fans aren’t causing an uproar?

This is making Adam look bad. Haven’t his fans learned anything from past seasons? Seems they haven’t.

Who cares, it’s over.

Do Adam fans think that somehow Kris will be disqualified and Adam will suddenly be named the winner?

I don’t see Idol getting rid of the text votes. They must make a ton of money from the AT&T exclusive deal.

I just have one question, and when I ask this I mean no disrespect to anyone or their fandom. I was a fan of both Kris and Adam for different reasons. I can understand why some like Adam more, and why some like Kris more. It’s all a matter of personal preference. So here’s my question:

“Why is it SO hard for some of Adam’s fans to accept that perhaps, just maybe, more people liked Kris’s music than Adam’s music?” I honestly would like to know…maybe someone can make me understand better.

I disagree. When the top corporate sponsor of the most popular show in the nation has paid, on the clock, employees with their fingers on the scale of what is supposed to be a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“fairà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  fan-determined competition it is news. The same thing could have been said about the $64,000 Question game show scandal during the late 1950à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s. This is definitely news and it shouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t have taken a week to become news.

Only issue is that it’s not doing any favors for either Kris or Adam. They don’t deserve to have a conflict like this blown way out of proportion and tarnish THEIR images. That’s why I don’t think it should be news. Especially when Kris and Adam appeal to different people and both feel that they both deserved it. It’s creating a terrible public image of Kris, adding fuel to the fire that some bitter Adam fans are causing, angering Kris fans (some to extreme levels), and causing major irrationality in both parties.

I have to say, if a bitter Adam fan (key word Bitter, most Adam fans are being excellent to Kris and his fans) tries to ruin my fun at the Idol tour, I will have to do some very scary things. Likewise, Kris fans should not gloat in Adam fans’ faces.

à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“Why is it SO hard for some of Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s fans to accept that perhaps, just maybe, more people liked Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s music than Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s music?à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  I honestly would like to knowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦maybe someone can make me understand better.

This is another issue I have. For God’s sake, people, it boils down to taste. I get why people like Adam, but it doesn’t appeal to me. It shouldn’t be that hard to get why people like Kris, too. Nobody is FACTUALLY better than another person at this. Your taste and my taste are not fact. You and I can act like we’re right, but we should NOT act like everyone else who disagrees with us on who we like is wrong.

That being said, the assumption of the 80 phones producing 96,000 votes power voting in the x10 fashion assumes 1 vote a minute, when it should be mote like 10 a minute creating 960,000 votes. The assumption was also using 2 hours of voting when it was four hours of voting, which gets you to over 1.8 million votes.

This is a much closer to the truth:

Bottom line, 80 go phones could mean 1.8 million votes.
Isn’t that scary at all?
Now, imagine if a poliltician wants to promote his city/state… and he has a citizen on the show, what better way than to promote his city/state than to push this contestant? AI generates a lot of good publicity for the hometowns of the idols (in particular for small towns that are not everyday in the news).
It would make sense for this politician to promote the use of go phones.
I am not saying that it is what happened in Conway or Little Rock, Arkansas, but if AI doesn’t change the rules It could very well happen someday.
Again, nothing will change the fact that Kris is the american idol and he will get a chance to do his own music along with Adam.

Plus, whatnottosing is currently showing how there was a limit to Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s appeal, and Kris had a broader appeal. If Adam was not able to win over more than 40% of the viewers, for example (because his style of singing is not universally appreciated), then he could not win under any circumstance.

The way they are computing this, using their ratings and the standard deviation, Allison would have won AI…

Wow–this all happened a week ago. It seems so far away now, doesn’t it? Time to start thinking summery thoughts. Nothing is going to come from this.

I think they’ve dug themselves in deeper with this. Probably would’ve been better to shut up (unless they released vote percentages or totals.) I think the number of votes cast at these parties was more in the 2 mil range. I saw fanbases talking about sending 20 votes in at a time and hitting redo every 8 to 10 seconds is probably more accurate than once a minute. Probably not enough to make a difference but who knows? No matter who does it, I don’t think it’s right or fair.

I’d like to see them allow phone calls only and no text votes.

Regardless of who does what, this makes me want to not vote at all. I’ve greatly reduced the amount of time I spend voting because I don’t think my votes matter at all.

This is a much closer to the truth:

Bottom line, 80 go phones could mean 1.8 million votes.
Isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t that scary at all?

A tiny bit, but that’s still about 2-3% of the overall vote

Bottom line, 80 go phones could mean 1.8 million votes.

That’s assuming that all 80 of those phones were used to their absolute maximum, which I highly doubt.

Do Adam fans think that somehow Kris will be disqualified and Adam will suddenly be named the winner?

According to an article I just read, that’s exactly what some fans are hoping happens. It’s completely ridiculous, in my opinion.

If they do throw out the text votes, I hope Adam fans realize they’ll be throwing out ALL text votes. Or at least they should. It wouldn’t be fair for them to throw out all of Kris’ text votes and not Adam’s. But then, that would likely ensure an Adam victory and that’s all that matters.

Bottom line, 80 go phones could mean 1.8 million votes.
Isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t that scary at all?

That would require that every single one of those phones were used to “powervote” thousands of times.

And besides, Cook won by a 12 million margin. It’s possible that even with 1.8 million votes thrown out that Kris still would have won.

It does make more sense that the possible number of power-text votes generated by 80 phones for 4 hours is well over 1 million. That said, I find it curious that no mention was made of the final vote margin since last year Seacrest made a point of saying the vote difference was 12 million.

In keeping with the dog metaphors, this year I had no dog in this race. I must admit I only watched because I heard about there being a possibly gay contestant who was favored to win and I was curious to see if mainstream America was truly ready to enter the 21st century. A gay American idol would’ve been truly awesome. Both guys seem nice and gracious enough. I was happy to see Kris in the finale over Gokey though. At least Kris is confident enough with his own sexual identity to openly show affection with another man without having to qualify every action and utterence by reminding people he means it strictly in the “godly way”, whatever the heck that means. You know what they say about knowing someone in the “biblical” sense LOL. Gokey has some ‘splainin’ to do!

I do agree that something should be done about the voting process. It isn’t about who America thinks is the best singer or performer so much as who has the most dedicated fan-base who in turn are willing to power text and redial for hours on end.

Oh, one other thing. Someone mentioned that most of America is not aware of this “scandal.” I disagree. Casual viewers and even people who don’t watch seem to have at least a vague inkling about something happening during the voting. I was talking to some co-workers and others said something to the effect of “isn’t that the one where the fans cheated?”

I think that, in the end, this reflects badly on both Kris and Adam. They both seem like nice guys and they also seem happy with the result.

Time to move on to the Idol “off-season” I think.

You are ALL losing the point: Fox deliberately put Adam in the bottom three when Matt was eliminated. According to pre-show predictors, he still had the highest amount of votes. FOX HAD TO KEEP HIM FROM WINNING THE TITLE. So they went to their sponsors, who, in turn, went into Arkansas. IT WAS SO OBVIOUS. “The first person who is safe is KRIS” was said for weeks after Matt left. FOX HAD TO CATER TO ITS CONSERVATIVE CONSTITUENTS!!!! Adam has questionable sexuality AND is for peace in the Middle East, singing tribute to assassinated Prime Minister Rabin in 2005. Don’t you get it, mj and people? Fox’s ratings with its BASE were at stake. It was PURE POLITICS!!!!!!!!!

I agree with the people who think that text messaging should be opened up to everyone (not just AT&T users). We voted for 4 hours at my house. We had 2 landlines (both AT&T). These phones fairly consistently went through. But we could only dial. We also had 2 cell phones that were Verizon. We could not text on these. On the Verizon cells we mostly got busy signals for the first 2 1/2 hours of voting. This probably happened to fans on both sides. And it was pretty frustrating and giant waste of time to dial for 2 1/2 hours and only get busy signals. Honestly, I never would really care to vote for 4 hours again. Maybe AI should limit the number of votes to 10 per phone or something like that. That being said, the result is the result, but I sure wish they would improve the voting process.

then to throw out all the text votes, and you go by dial idol, then Kris would have still been the winner. I mean, for me, I was honestly trying to vote for both and I got through to Adam first before I got to Kris. And yes, I am a Kris fan but I ended up throwing more votes to Adam in the finale. Also, I’m from CA if that matters to anyone.

The fact is, we’ll never know about the results and I don’t really see a point to drag it out anymore. I got what I wanted- a Kris/Adam finale and I think for the most part, people are happy about this outcome. Also, on tour, we will bond together for our mutual enemies- Gokey/Sarver which I think is a lot more fun than pitting best friends against each other. Yes, in one of the morning shows, Kris referred to Adam as his best friend.

Idol is losing younger people (older teens and young professionals) because they do not have time to power vote.

Wouldn’t parents of young children have the least amount of time to power vote? I’m a “young professional” and I do occasionally go out during the week but most of the time I’m in bed by 11 on weeknights so that I can wake up at 7 and go to my 40-hour-a-week job. I typically settle in for Idol, DWTS, and baseball on Tuesday nights. I work out, eat dinner, study for insurance industry exams, etc. until 7 when Idol comes on. I usually would just sit and hit redial while watching DWTS and baseball. Perhaps I’m atypical, but I do have a lot of co workers about my age who watch Idol (and DWTS and baseball). I have no idea if they vote, and maybe the show is losing viewers in this demographic, but I don’t think it has anything to do with whether or not they have time to powervote. I think it has more to do with the poor production quality of the show than anything else.

Lil Rounds getting to the top 6/7 is more suspicious than this AT&T story.

The Vulture’s snarky take on the OMG!11! story:

Scandal! Last Tuesday night, “representatives of AT&T,” a corporate sponsor of American Idol, may have provided free cell phones and free text-messaging service at two Arkansas parties at which fans of Kris Allen were in attendance, according to an explosive story in today’s New York Times. Just how deep does this conspiracy run? Says an AT&T spokesman: “In Arkansas, we were invited to attend the local watch parties organized by the community. A few local employees brought a small number of demo phones with them and provided texting tutorials to those who were interested.” Assuming that by “small number” he means “several million” and by “texting tutorials” he means that these diabolical retail employees were somehow able to disconnect the cell-phone service of all Adam Lambert fans in a dozen large cities, this still probably wouldn’t have had any impact on a vote that was reportedly not even close anyway. Explosive!

This Yearà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s American Idol Finale Probably No More Fixed Than Usual

and People magazine has even stated that power-texting was encouraged for both of the idol’s fans since fliers were given out with instruction on how to power-text.

http://tvwatch.people.com/2009/05/27/did-power-texting-influence-idol-outcome/

Oh, and for the most part, when I read comments on these, both Adam and Kris fans thinks it’s pretty ridiculous and want to move on already. =)

the AI people must be excited that they’re still in the news.. gearing up for their next round of auditions!

I am a huge Adam fan, but I agree that what is done is done and we need to move on.

Releasing final vote numbers won’t stop any speculation, because of the claims of jamming phone lines with Gizmo software, text votes not getting thru in time to be counted, etc., so there may be lots of actual votes that never got counted … but who will ever know?

But what does need to be done is for Idol to fix this ridiculous voting procedure. It is too much of a burden on the fans, as well as too prone to manipulation. It needs to be one vote per phone line (or per IP address if they want to include internet voting). Of course, they wouldn’t be able to say they got 100 million VOTES, but they might be able to say 10 million PEOPLE voted. 1 person x 10,000 votes is meaningless, 1 vote x 10,000 people says something.

I won’t be voting again unless Idol changes this terrible system.

Yes, it isn’t against the rules to power vote. Dedicated Idol fans all do the power-voting. Last year one Archuleta fan boasted getting over a 1,000 votes in 4 hours and I heard the same with from one Cook’s fan. I don’t know how you could possibly get those many votes in unless you were power voting. I might have gotten 75 votes in 4 hours of dialing continuously. Heck Dial Idol sells software that allows you to vote on your computer and that’s how they “measure the busy signals” which even TPTB check on to see what the predictions are. There are other software out there too. I never used them nor do I use text messaging.

It was very tedious for me to hold that phone and vote (or attempt to) for 4 hours straight. This year I gave up after 2 hours with only 15 votes logged in. I can see why people resort to this other method.

And as far as power voting goes why should Idol care. They get to announce and “wow” everyone when they say “Almost 100 million votes cast.” It’s good publicity for the show so people might think everyone in American voted…right.

Right a few people showing up with demos is not going to make a whole of of difference because the other side probably already knows how to do it and is doing it. A big mountain over a molehill.

However, I was listening to the radio on the way home just a few minutes ago and the DJ said now he knows how Kris won with that story about AT&T and that A.l. has no comment and stands by the votes. Then they didn’t say anything more. It could have been the reverse if Adam had won and it is so stupid to say that. Don’t they know people do power vote–voth sides using a variety of methods.

They could change the voting to 10 votes per number. Isn’t that what they do for America’s got Talent? In that case, I bet more people would vote as it’s only 10 votes rather than committ yourself to 4 hours.

I agree with this:

The bottom line is this: due to technology, the Idol voting system is broken. Hopefully this newscycle on abuse will bring about a change to the kooky voting methods now in place.

and this:

If they à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“oweà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  it to Kris to say what the margin of victory was, then they owe it to Adam to say how many votes came from Arkansas and how many were text votes.

There is something very wrong with the voting system that needs to be looked at for the future. But Kris won fair and square, and everyone needs to accept that. Adam fans who are calling for a “recount” (yes it’s happening on other sites) are wasting their time. It won’t happen, and it just creates more ugliness.

But we can’t pretend the voting system is just fine, because it is not. It stinks. If anything, we should stop watching, or at least stop voting. The voting is a joke. It isn’t fair at all. First, texting makes phone voting almost meaningless. Second, only people with AT&T get to text. How is that fair? Are people going to be forced to switch to AT&T, or else not vote?

You are ALL losing the point: Fox deliberately put Adam in the bottom three when Matt was eliminated. According to pre-show predictors, he still had the highest amount of votes. FOX HAD TO KEEP HIM FROM WINNING THE TITLE. So they went to their sponsors, who, in turn, went into Arkansas. IT WAS SO OBVIOUS. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The first person who is safe is KRISà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  was said for weeks after Matt left. FOX HAD TO CATER TO ITS CONSERVATIVE CONSTITUENTS!!!! Adam has questionable sexuality AND is for peace in the Middle East, singing tribute to assassinated Prime Minister Rabin in 2005. Donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t you get it, mj and people? Foxà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s ratings with its BASE were at stake. It was PURE POLITICS!!!!!!!!!

Guess somebody forgot to clue in the judges?

the AI people must be excited that theyà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢re still in the news.. gearing up for their next round of auditions!

Yep. AI has their publicity & AT&T has their revenue. I’d venture to say that both are very happy indeed.

tideturning : You are ALL losing the point: Fox deliberately put Adam in the bottom three when Matt was eliminated. According to pre-show predictors, he still had the highest amount of votes. FOX HAD TO KEEP HIM FROM WINNING THE TITLE. So they went to their sponsors, who, in turn, went into Arkansas. IT WAS SO OBVIOUS. à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“The first person who is safe is KRISà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  was said for weeks after Matt left. FOX HAD TO CATER TO ITS CONSERVATIVE CONSTITUENTS!!!! Adam has questionable sexuality AND is for peace in the Middle East, singing tribute to assassinated Prime Minister Rabin in 2005. Donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t you get it, mj and people? Foxà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s ratings with its BASE were at stake. It was PURE POLITICS!!!!!!!!!

Please, Fox put Adam in the bottom three because he really was in bottom three, but the voting looked close. I don’t believe for one moment that he was actually bottom 2 though but text voting is not measured by Dial Idol, and they had him in the middle of the pack. They also could have put him in bottom 2 though he was probably bottom 3 (having higher than the bottom 2) to spur people on to vote) . TPTB like to “influence” the voting…duh…. I don’t think they liked it being that close and they knew that would make Adam’s fans stop throwing votes at Allison and only vote for him, to energize them. A.I. also gave Adam so many pimp spots it was obvious to everyone and we all know that if it’s the last thing people hear, they remember it right before they vote.

As far as “questionable sexuality” there is no question what his preference was as you would have been totally naive not to know and the vast majority of people clearly stated “who cares!” It’s about talent not him being “gay.”

If you see anything about this season, you will see Adam everywhere. Even the the Billboard Top 100 online story, where Kris had 5 singles on Top 100 to Adam’s 4, Kris is the winner but guess who’s picture they have???

“Allen’s victory single “No Boundaries,” one of five songs the newly crowned champ places on the Hot 100, opens at No. 11 with 134,000 downloads. ”

It continues with this:
“Runner-up Adam Lambert debuts on the Hot 100 with four tracks, with his take of Tears For Fears’ “Mad World” leading the charge at No. 19 with 115,000 downloads. ”

I saw Adam’s picture all over the place when you were discussing A.I. in magazines, on-line, etc. He was everywhere and that’s how A.I. wanted it to be. There was no politics–this is a reality show not life or death. They are both winners.

Link to Billboard Top 100
http://www.billboard.com/bbcom/news/idols-inundate-hot-100-but-glee-gloats-with-1003977092.story

I hope people understand hopefully before the tour that Kris won and Adam didnt.I dont think some Glamberts will ever let it go or let Kris fans believe that he won fair.

I honestly dont care about who’s picture is on Billboards because Kris doesnt care and is happy for Adam.If he can take all the media crap and not want to punch Adam or interviewers then i will do the same.

Kris has five singles on the top 100 and Adam has four.Thats what i care about.

Bottom line, 80 go phones could mean 1.8 million votes.
Isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t that scary at all?

What’s even more scary is that with that kind of reasoning, it’s also possible that only 4500 people are voting in AI, or about 90 people per state. Scary indeed (at least to AI execs)!

Who cares, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s over.

Do Adam fans think that somehow Kris will be disqualified and Adam will suddenly be named the winner?

I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t see Idol getting rid of the text votes. They must make a ton of money from the AT&T exclusive deal.

I care. This kind of problem dates back forever with AI. On the one hand, AI wants us to take it seriously. We have the futures of these contestants in our hands. If our favorites get booted and we didn’t vote, it’s our fault. On the other hand, everything AI does says they don’t take it seriously. You can go back to Paula being accused of having a relationship with a contestant and ABC even doing a news investigation of this. AI’s response was who cares. Some contestants receive tremedous exposure early on and some receive none. AI’s response is who cares. Repeated voting irregularities. AI says who cares. Eventually, you are right, we won’t care…and we won’t watch.

First and foremost, we don’t know what the vote difference between Kris and Adam was. Just because Billy Bush was told it wasn’t close, that doesn’t make it fact. It may be that Idol wanted to plant this tidbit because the voting was extremely close. It might have been so close that AI worried that the vote would be challenged with these kind of “irregularities.” A Florida type situation. What better way to head that off than to unofficially suggest that the vote difference was so wide nothing would change the outcome.

Couple of points:
So because my husband works for AT&T he should be precluded from voting? Or from teaching anyone how to text? LOL. Good luck with that.

Secondly, a Florida situation? This is reality tv not the election of the American president!

Regardless of who does what, this makes me want to not vote at all. Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ve greatly reduced the amount of time I spend voting because I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t think my votes matter at all.

This.

I do agree that something should be done about the voting process. It isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t about who America thinks is the best singer or performer so much as who has the most dedicated fan-base who in turn are willing to power text and redial for hours on end.

And this. I don’t see how any AI fan could really be happy with the status quo. Regardless of who you supported this year.

NYTimes – Guess y’all don’t remember Jayson Blair or Judy Miller? Yup, and they were investigative reporters – covering topics that mattered. This was a NYTimes entertainment reporter who cobbled together a non-story. Who was the source for this stupid story? And this is Idol, not the Presidential Election. Florida? Whatevs.

Sadly, you can’t un-ring a bell. This week should have been about Kris and Adam and their hopes for the future. Not about Idol – it should have died when the confetti dropped. Their first press junket as “launched” stars in the real world – too bad this took a full news day to be debunked.

But seriously, both Kris and Adam will be fine. No one will remember this in November when their albums drop.

Thanks, MJ. Great coverage of this.

If AT&T wanted to influence the outcome, they should have taken lessons from Adam Lambertà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s fans and posted instructions across the Internet on how to power-vote for Kris.

Here is a Lambert site:
http://adam-lambert.org/hardcore-voting-guide/

Instead, the stupidass AT&T folks sent a few people to TWO parties with a handful of phones. Real smart. Meanwhile, tens of thousands of Lambert fans across the nation were following the power-texting rules posted on Lambert sites.

This is really irrelevant because Kris’ sites did the same thing. Krisallennation had the download for Gizmo on their home page. Both fanbases did the same thing. I’m sure Danny’s did also.
The probelm lies in the voting system and the fact that technology has grown faster than the Idol voting rules have been able to adapt to. Maybe they will look into it and change it, but I doubt it. I am of the school that thinks they like the fact that Ryan can announce just under 100 million votes. Plus, if they change it now, for Season 9, wouldn’t it look like they think Season 8 had something wrong also?!

Question: how many free AT&T phones would it take to offset the media support Adam received during the show, and the pimping from the producers and judges? Of course, Adam didn’t ask for any of this…it isn’t his fault…but if a couple free phones can be considered a huge unfair advantage, then I think it’s fair to ask whether anything has been fair this season…or any other season?

Remember, one week before the final, Simon Cowell said this to America right before voting began: “It’s very easy to assume that you’re going to sail through to the final next week, right? So, let me just take us back to tonight: the show is about finding a star who has earned the right to be in the final and I want everyone not to assume you’re going to be there, but to vote for you because you deserve it based on talent.”

In the background we hear Randy say, “yeah!” and Paula and Kara chant “vote, vote, vote!”

A couple AT&T workers give out a few (we don’t know how many) free phones at a party. Somehow this is an epic injustice that invalidates the competition. The assumption is that Kris received special help from the Idol machine that was withheld from Adam. Five pimp spots and a “vote, vote, vote” chant is totally fair because it is ADAM LAMBERT. A handful of free phones from local AT&T workers (which has been done many times before) is the greatest voting conspiracy since Kennedy v. Nixon.

Is this bizzaro world or something? Kris is now the one with the Idol machine behind him?

I’d say about 1,000 free phones would have helped balance things…at least 1,000. Maybe more.

I’m just curious about why FOX are not willing to give out the votes to the public. If it is a very rational gap, I think it won’t harm anyone. But maybe it is because FOX realized that the gap is so huge that there must be something wrong with the voting. and maybe that is the root why all those rumors floating around. I even think maybe Adam got even lower than 30 million, which would be ridiculous because he got at least 30 million during top3 and that is only for 2 hours voting. I don’t think there is any conspiracy, but maybe Adam’s voting line do have some mechanical problems for certain time. they just dare not say that.

by the way, for a show like this, shouldn’t we audience know the truth to make sure that it is fair? if it is not, why bother voting? It’s not for Adam, it is just for our right I think. and actually I think Adam does not want this scandal becoming big because it really embarass Kris and FOX, plus AT&T.

Secondly, a Florida situation? This is reality tv not the election of the American president!

Thanks for the education. My point was that when the voting is close, irregularities taint the outcome. If the voting isn’t close, irregularities matter little.

I have maintained that anyone with half a brain and has watched just 1 season AI knows the voting system sucks and has gotten worse. We’ve already had various Season___-gates. That is why I stopped watching for so long. I only came back because of Adam and will now go away again.

Having only AT&T allowed as a way to test vote is bad. Here in CA Verizon and T-Mobile are the biggest cell carriers. AT&T cell phones don’t really work well in a lot of California, you get huge amounts of dropped calls. T-Mobile was the same way but in the last year has corrected that problem.

But maybe it is because FOX realized that the gap is so huge that there must be something wrong with the voting.

I don’t really understand what a huge gap would have to do with anything being wrong with the voting.

How do we know that Adam was ahead of Kris on ANY week? It seems like a lot of people are acting as if Kris frequently occupied the silver stools of doom or something. Kris and Adam were B3 the same week and we don’t know FOR SURE who was 3rd and 4th that week. Neither of them were B3 on any other week. So again, we don’t know FOR SURE who was ahead of who. It seems like there are a lot of assumptions being made that there was some sort of conspiracy to get Kris the win. What if Kris was actually ahead every single week? There was a lot of buzz about Adam, for sure. But there was also a lot of buzz about Danny, Lil Rounds, Matt Giraud, and heck, even Scott McIntyre. That does not necessarily translate into votes.

Logically speaking, I understand that the chances of Kris being ahead of Adam every single week is slim to none, but my point is that we don’t know who was ahead of who on any week or how close the votes may (or may not) have been through the entire season.

I still just scratch my head that it is so “dishonest” that one contestant with one B3 appearance won over another contestant with, guess what? ONE B3 APPEARANCE. Based on this logic…shouldn’t Danny Gokey have won? He had NO B3 appearances before his 3rd place dismissal. I didn’t see any conspiracy theories about that one.

@ cat

:lol_tb:

Succinct and exact.

by the way, for a show like this, shouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t we audience know the truth to make sure that it is fair? if it is not, why bother voting?

Amen.

The bottom line is this: due to technology, the Idol voting system is broken. Hopefully this newscycle on abuse will bring about a change to the kooky voting methods now in place.

It bothers me that so many people think this is no big deal. My guy was Anoop; however, the finale could have been jeopardized.

However, the fact remains, that when paid employees of one of the American Idolà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s flagship corporate sponsors are actively and publicly participating in supplementing ONLY the voting total for one side of what is allegedly a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“competitionà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  then, clearly, even if the actual counting of the votes is completely fair this practice still fails the test of being truly fair to both sides.

In Season 3, Fantasia won by less than 2% of the vote. I won’t even go into what happened in the Ruben/Clay Finale. People need to know, this procedure could have made a difference in an extremely close final results voting.

[AI] Your rules clearly state that no one shall be allowed to create batch votes by using a technological advantage. Yet you say that everything checked out as above-board? Are you saying that NO ONE à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“power-textedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  as that is a clear violation of your rules? How can you have a pervasive clear violation of the rules and have everything be within the rules at the same time?

Either NO power-texts were allowed or YOU ARE LYING. Period.

Now, this is the most appropriate response I have read! We may well believe that Kris overpowered Adam in the voting results. So, okay this is no big deal? Not. This questions the integrity of the show.

Just add this to the list of things that went wrong this year. I am not doubting that Kris did win. Great that Adam has no problem with this. However, these actions are just plain wrong and could affect a future American Idol winner and loser. I hope TPTB pay attention this time!

Simple facts:

1. Kris Won

2. Adam is not disputing it.

3. Kris and Adam are friends

4. It doesn’t matter how Kris won. He won.

5. It is time for Idol to face the fact that the show will do better with a new more sophisticated voting system. Casual fans feel their time is wasted voting against power voters, so many people don’t vote.

Let’s all try to get along ok?

Quick question:

What is AT&T supposed to be getting out of helping Kris (and not Adam) win? How do they benefit?

That is the most perplexing question to me.

If the pony that has been pimped for the entire season loses in an epic landslide, it deflates the whole rock god and runaway winner meme, no? Honestly, I don’t think the votes were close at all. I think Kris crushed Adam on Top 2. Keeping the votes a secret actually reinforce Adam’s cachet. But again, neither was/is my pony, so I don’t really care.

If Idol could survive Ruben/Clay and the slim voting margins, it can and will survive this. And regardless, WWE is a multi-million entertainment franchise – and no one thinks that’s legit. And Idol has way more cred than that.

A Florida type situation. What better way to head that off than to unofficially suggest that the vote difference was so wide nothing would change the outcome.

Well, now I’m really glad that Kris’s appearance on Ellen was interrupted by Obama’s Supreme Court nomination yesterday. Would hate for the court to be shorthanded if they have to decide Lambert v. AI/Allen/AT&T! :devil_tb:

Well, now Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m really glad that Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s appearance on Ellen was interrupted by Obamaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Supreme Court nomination yesterday. Would hate for the court to be shorthanded if they have to decide Lambert v. AI/Allen/AT&T!

And I guess that would make you a Kris fan.

Sorry that I used a “real life” voting situation to illustrate my point. But if this is “reality TV” and therefore we shouldn’t take it seriously, why vote at all? Isn’t spending four hours making your fingers sore a big waste of time? Why watch the winner on Ellen? If it doesn’t matter, why are folks even here discussing it? It seems to me that if we are invested in the contestants and the outcome of the show then we should care about how the voting is done, calculated and announced.

I think they should reconfigure the voting system. They should have one free vote per phone number, followed by up to 25 or so votes at like 10 cents apiece. That would measure breadth and depth of the fanbases- how many people are willing to pick up a phone, plus how many people are willing to PAY to keep their Idol around. My guess is that very few people would spend the money, and if anybody did it would be a more useful predictor of post-Idol success than the current voting model.

[AI] Your rules clearly state that no one shall be allowed to create batch votes by using a technological advantage. Yet you say that everything checked out as above-board? Are you saying that NO ONE à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“power-textedà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  as that is a clear violation of your rules?

Here is what the clause at the end of each episode apparently says:

Production will have in place weekly monitoring procedures designed to prevent individuals from unfairly influencing the outcome of the voting by generating significant blocks of votes using technical enhancements. The producers reserve the right to remove any identified “power dialing” votes.

And in the AI FAQ it says:

A weekly monitoring procedure will be in place to prevent individuals from unfairly influencing the outcome of the voting by generating significant blocks of votes using technical enhancements.

A few comments:

–First of all, we have no idea what constitutes a “significant block”. Is 20 votes a minute a significant block? How about 100? Or is it more like 5,000 votes a minute? We don’t know.

–Second, how do we know that all the power texted votes aren’t already being thrown out? We have no idea. For all we know, every time AI gets 10 votes at once from a single number, they disregard it. Perhaps people who power-text are already wasting their time. Again, we don’t know.

Everyone is acting like they know a lot more than they really do about how these votes are counted. I am sure if there was a way to spin the numbers to create an Adam win, they would have done it. Adam has been the favorite son all season long.

We can only conclude that Kris won by a wide enough margin that there was no getting around it.

First of all, every single significant fan base have post and sites with information on power voting, the whole ridiculous story behind this was against AT&T, not against any particular fan base. If it was another fan war theory, I’m sure it would have never made it into the NYT.

Second, the voting should be similar to BGT, a number with a small charge and lines only open for 10 minutes for each contestant. This way AT&T could still earn money. The whole power voting thing seems a little bit vicious, how many valuable hours have been wasted with thousands of fans power voting during the season? How many books could the fans have read during that time, how many things could people have learned or how many hours of actually productive activities have been wasted with all the contestants during 8 seasons? If you think about it for a second, it’s ridiculous. And I say this from an absolutely external point of view, as I don’t live in the USA and I can’t vote, but if I could, I’d like to be able to participate in a fair voting system that would allow me to have a life on Tuesdays night.

And I’m not saying that this is unfair against a certain contestant, it’s unfair for certain age groups, people that work, go to college or have any other activities, would certainly like to participate in a relevant way.

Just my 2 cents, as an Adam fan, I’m really tired of this story. It’s ridiculous, and I really hope people don’t label every Adam fan as someone who promoted or believes in this.

Just want to know….what is Kris getting Other than the title “American Idol” that Adam isn’t getting?

They both have contracts, they both are making bucks from Itunes, they both will get money from the tour, they are both making the media rounds.

Actually, I think Kris got the short end of the stick because he has to sing No boundaries…and based on last year’s tour the coronation song was the only difference between 1st and 2nd place.

So I’m with Adam….this is a lot of noice about absolutely nothing!

What is AT&T supposed to be getting out of helping Kris (and not Adam) win? How do they benefit?

That is the most perplexing question to me.

Again, I could give a flip about all of this and probably should stop reading — sort of like rubber necking at a car wreck, which I seriously never do.

But since I’m here, I’m not seeing this as an AT&T interest at all (other than they’re the exclusive carrier for text votes and make a lot of $$ with this AI gig.) No one is saying that AT&T sent out a firm-wide memo encouraging the reported practice and offering employee incentives for using it to benefit a single contestant. It’s also, imo, not a matter of AT&T employees voting for a favorite on their own personal phones, however many they have or purchase.

Rather, in this instance, it’s that AT&T employees turned out at these voting parties and took it upon themselves to bring along AT&T demos to hand out for free use to vote for Kris and tutored those peeps on how to send tons of votes at a time. Those employees who showed up at Kris’ watch parties, even if only in a personal capacity, took along products (and arguably information, although this is debatable to me) belonging to AT&T and offered them w/o cost to fans of Kris to vote for Kris — giving an appearance of AT&T lending support to one contestant over another.

But again, because I’m suspicious, er, realistic, I have little doubt (and even less proof lol) that this same thing happened in a lot of places for other contestants along the way. It would be interesting to me if AT&T conducted a broad internal investigation to see how widespread the practice might have been. That would be a story.

I have only one word for you.

Decaf.

:thumbup_tb:

Kris won Season 8. I wish him nothing but the best. He’s doing a heckuva job selling “Natural Disasters”, too!

Adam remains my favorite of the season (along with Allison). Adam is going to do just fine.

Clearly they know the voting system was flawed. The phones were jammed for both contestants the entire East Coast time and Dial Idol said Adam got more West Coast votes. The voting system was pretty much saturated. Most East Coast Adam voters could not vote (I assume the same for Kris)

No way at all that there were under 100 million votes when the week before in half the voting time there were 88 milliion. Votes were lost or thrown out. DI had them basically in a tie. Landslide would be a lie.

But Kris won and I believe it. He’s straight and a Christian and that is what the Idol contest was about. That is what will be remembered. Hopefully it will be the last year of this crazy power voting and voter fraud. What matters now is the music they put out.

It will be funny if after all this, Allison beats them both! I’d love it, and I’d say a great possibility. She’s going with Jive and will have that teen market sewn up.

Sasha B: Keeping the votes a secret actually reinforce Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s cachet.

I agree. And having various news outlets discussing the question of votes keeps Adam’s name and AI in the news cycle. Someone, somewhere, is enjoying this and all the press it is getting.

Reading all these comments makes me feel AI-old because I remember being unhappy with their system back in S2, Clay/Ruben. This debate kicked a lot of dust around again when Daughtry was booted at the final 4, season 5 even though he had previously been in the bottom 2. Fans seem to forget that.

It’s a reality show. An entertainment show. One that does things their way, to sell advertising and make $$. Those who say they won’t vote anymore…been there, said that. Still voted this time, lol. The show has a way of enticing the viewer.

This will subside–it may take a whole year for it to do so; the Daughtry/Hicks/McPhee stuff lasted for many months on the web with fans watching every interview, every move. My guess is that the obsession will endure for several months on these idols, too.

One thing that’s changed for me since S2…I don’t expect AI to be fair. I expect them to have favorites that are featured, pimped, endorsed. It sells the show and that sells advertising.

Now, what type of winner are they planning for next year? A female, since we’ve had back to back guys? And to be sure they get one, will it be an all female F2?

But Kris won and I believe it. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s straight and a Christian and that is what the Idol contest was about.

Yes, the Idol contest is about being straight and being a Christian. That’s why the bulk of the show each week consists of kissing contests between men and women and Bible readings.

Do you think Kris’s win has anything to do with the fact that people like his music? People love the tone of his voice? They love the way he presents himself on stage? His arrangements of songs? Do you think it had anything to do with the fact that he is the only person this year (and maybe any year) to take a song on the radio now and make it sound even cooler?

Is any of this relevant to his win? Or is he just that a faceless straight Christian?

I really think that the voting needs to be changed. Last year was the first time I bothered to vote and i personally got in 1000 votes simply by using 2 regular phone lines and one cell phone and sitting there for however-many hours. And my David did not win. Nevertheless, I think that I would love to see it as 10 votes per line or some set amount depending on how many contestants are left like Dancing with the Stars. Then we would see the true opinion of the number of people watching the show. The winner should not be on which contestant has the fans that are the most adept at finding ways to multiple-text/call, etc. I think it would still have been the two Davids last year and Adam and Chris this year and they all are great musicians/performers and hopefully can make a career out of music in some way. But the voting just makes Idol look silly and we all know the actual numbers of people who watch the show from Nielson or whatever so the number of votes cast is meaningless.

But Kris won and I believe it. Heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s straight and a Christian and that is what the Idol contest was about.

Weird, I don’t think that’s on the application any place.

Unless you have the internet or look into the news than you dont know Kris is a christian.

rbifol-Its impossiable that people like Kris.Infact everyone hates him and cant like the fact that he’s soft rock and doesnt scream.Only Adam Lambert could have won because everyone likes him and his style.Its pretty sad when someone says that they dont like Adam because he created a new style of
music lol.

Tess May 27th, 2009 at 8:21 pm

Just want to knowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦.what is Kris getting Other than the title à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“American Idolà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  that Adam isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t getting?

Usually AI has the previous season’s winner sing on the finale night. So, being the winner pretty much guarantees that you get to go back on the AI stage and get national exposure to 25 million people. That helps when you are selling a record. It’s about awareness.

And if in some future seasons’ finale AI features all the former winners, as it did in season 6′s finale, then Kris would get to be on stage then as well.

And if Kris sells well, he’ll be back even more than that. Throw in a Grammy and he’ll definitely be back several times.

“But if this is à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“reality TVà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  and therefore we shouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t take it seriously, why vote at all?”

Because it’s fun.

“Isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t spending four hours making your fingers sore a big waste of time?”

Yes.

I have to step away from this conversation. I really only vote because it’s fun. I vote for a few minutes and I’m done. Even though I have unlimited texting. I like to “make believe” I had input, that I participated. I don’t consider it my job to watch over AI. It entertains me and that’s it.

Kris’s “WIN” will forever be tainted.
The truth must be sought.

I think the Idol winner will make more off the Summer Tour, right MJ? Not sure what the splits are, but I don’t think it’s parity for the top 10 on the tour. I’m sure there are other perks, too. I don’t think any runner up got endorsement deals either. Last year, Cook got Skechers. But it’s not a guarantee. I don’t think Jordin or Taylor got the Skechers endorsement, IIRC.

If nothing changes I’m ok with that. Adam is to big of a star to need it-Kris needs it more. Elvis lost a two bit singing contest in mississippi when he was real young.
What I find really strange(regardless if there were sites that instructed ppl (WHO HAD PHONES) to doit is the fact that ATT were providing equiptment and instruction is disturbing to me and absolutely raises my suspicion as far as political correctness for fox goes..

I still just scratch my head that it is so à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“dishonestà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  that one contestant with one B3 appearance won over another contestant with, guess what? ONE B3 APPEARANCE. Based on this logicà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦shouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t Danny Gokey have won? He had NO B3 appearances before his 3rd place dismissal. I didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t see any conspiracy theories about that one.

Exactly. I think the Whatnottosing editorial on Season 8 does a great job of explaining how Kris was pretty much in the running, ever since Country Week. Just because the judges/producers/some of the media didnt laude or pimp him, doesnt mean he didnt produce great performances and quietly gathered votes/fans.

Do you think Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s win has anything to do with the fact that people like his music?

LOL, that would make too much sense.

I really think that the voting needs to be changed.

Im all for re-tooling the system to prevent over-zealous fans from taking over the show…but lets be careful what we wish for. Who knows? Without devoted Glamberts, maybe Adam wouldnt have survived Country Week or even Rat Pack Week? Same for Allison who got the shaft from the judges more often than not.

BTW, Nielson ratings? Now THAT my friends needs revising. So we can finally take into account DVR and Online viewings…people just dont gather around the tv as they did before.

Kris will also get to appear on the opening credits and have his picture in the audition wall.

Anyway, any contestant would be back on idol several times if they get a Grammy, even, let’s say…Scott or Sarver.

lulumarie
May 27th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“WINà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  will forever be tainted.
The truth must be sought.

Ummm, not for me. Whether I like Kris or Adam or both or neither, it’s a fucking reality TV show. There’s no truth to be found.

Where truth will be found is in about 60 to 70 years when their epitaths are written. I’m a firm believer in happiness is the true success. That is something we will never ever know about any of these people. If you die happy and content, you win!

I think Idol winner make more off the Summer Tour, right MJ? Not sure what the splits are, but I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t think ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s parity for the top 10 on the tour. Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢m sure there are other perks.

I thought so as well, but when Ryan asked on LKL if they make the same, Kris and Adam looked at each other and said “Yeah, I think so” in a way that made it seem like they both knew what each other was making. I doubt that is true though for all of the Top 10. I don’t know… maybe Kradam is making the same money, others not? Or maybe they just don’t know. Or Kris was being nice and Adam was coy. lol

The winner also does the Walmart CEO meeting. I think. If I am right. My fave bit is that the winner gets confetti dumped on them.

Anyway, no matter how upset people are with this… voting will never change. They are a sponsor and the current system works quite well for AT&T which works well for AI. I do think the system is rather “broken” for people at home having their say, but it’s not going to change. I never really voted, did this season (did about 10-15 votes until Top 3, for which I had my computer take over), but won’t again since I cannot be bothered, knowing someone has to power text to influence. Plus, it’s rather boring to vote for ages.

What I find really strange(regardless if there were sites that instructed ppl (WHO HAD PHONES) to doit is the fact that ATT were providing equiptment and instruction is disturbing to me and absolutely raises my suspicion as far as political correctness for fox goes..

The actions of 2-3 att employees are not a representation of AT&T as a company or sponsor.

What’s the walmart CEO meeting?

hee. I’m about to make my confession…as if anybody but me cares.

Last year, I voted (texting) like a banshee for Cook. I had just set up my new plan with my daughter (unlimited texting because when it comes to talking on the phone, one would think she’s a deaf/mute). So I set up automatic pay and got my bills online. After the 3rd bill when it was still over $500, I had to see just exactly what they were charging me for…I had at first thought it was the new phones and set up and then that maybe I didn’t click OK soon enough. Well I found out that they were charging me for each and every text and rather went ballistic. So much so, in fact, that I hung up on one rep and had to call back a few minutes later when I had regained composure. They had only put my daughter on unlimited and not me, the bastards.

So, to make a long story even longer, they ended up taking about $1,500 off my bill. I was delighted because I’d have never spent that money texting for a freaking idol contestant whether I was obsessed or not. So in relating the story to my daughter a day or two later, she said that I wasn’t signed up for unlimited, that I told the dude at the store that I don’t text and would only answer a couple a month from my daughter. OOOOPPPSSSSies.
(/end confession)

“The actions of 2-3 att employees are not a representation of AT&T as a company or sponsor.”

It still doesn’t look good. I hope those employees received some instruction in public relations. I work for a major airline manufacturer, and an employees public actions most definitely reflects on the company. That is partly why this is a big issue.

Kris will also get to appear on the opening credits and have his picture in the audition wall.

Maybe the disgruntled Adam fans (not all his fans, just the bitter ones) will get lucky and Kris’s picture will be stuffed in a corner behind a plant. Then they can high-five and celebrate in general. Maybe they can get together and burn Kris in effigy along with a few Go Phones.

Whatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s the walmart CEO meeting?

It’s just the annual general shareholder meetings. They’ve been getting the Idol Winner to play for years. They usually have one other big name too. I seem to recall Beyonce did it once. Those shareholder meetings usually pay pretty well. Walmart typically puts the performance up on their website. It’s held in Arkansas, so that might mean that Kris might have a few fans in the audience.

gingerly: That’s a funny story! I still don’t understand my cell phone bill entirely, but it is consistent month to month, so that’s good enough! LOL

Ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s held in Arkansas, so that might mean that Kris might have a few fans in the audience.

I only watched this last year (you can watch online along with all the numbers and shareholders’ initiaves and other boring crap). Last year, Queen Latifah was the host and the performers were David Cook and Jennifer Hudson. It was the first time for me to see David perform outside the AI bubble and the requisite TV interview things. There’s a huge crowd of people there. They showed David the love (much more so, I think, than for Jennifer). So yeah, to agree with you, I think Kris is gonna be floored at the reception he gets being a hometown boy AND the winner. I hope he gets a bit of background…or not. It would be fine to see him delightedly surprised, especially with all the ugly shit that’s been going on.

As an Adam fan who is really tired of the voting issues (why, NY Times, did you have to perpetuate this?): I don’t think there’s any way to make the voting for Idol completely fair. It’s not really fair that some people vote thousands of times, but it wouldn’t be fair to limit people to ten votes per phone or something like that, because what if there’s an entire family who want to vote, but they only have one phone?

Kris and Adam are both perfectly placed to (with skill and luck) have great careers, and it seems like the focus on this is a disservice to both of them.

It’s kist a shame the way Adam was cheated. Why won’t Idol release the count. They made a big deal out of announcing the numbers between Archie and Cook.

Last year, Queen Latifah was the host and the performers were David Cook and Jennifer Hudson.

Actually, Cookie and Hudson were just the performers that day. The concerts go on all week. Last year, on Tuesday, they had Taylor Swift and Lifehouse, Wednesday was All-American Rejects and Journey and Thursday was Keith Urban and Carrie Underwood. The new Idol always seems to be scheduled for Friday (that will be Friday, 5th this year). Rumours are circulating that the big concert this year will be Aerosmith (perhaps Gokey can make a special appearance).

So yeah, to agree with you, I think Kris is gonna be floored at the reception he gets being a hometown boy AND the winner. I hope he gets a bit of backgroundà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦or not. It would be fine to see him delightedly surprised, especially with all the ugly shit thatà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s been going on.

Yes, that should be great for him (especially after this week of nonsense)

If the pony that has been pimped for the entire season loses in an epic landslide, it deflates the whole rock god and runaway winner meme, no? Honestly, I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t think the votes were close at all. I think Kris crushed Adam on Top 2. Keeping the votes a secret actually reinforce Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s cachet. But again, neither was/is my pony, so I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t really care.

If this is true, why would they have released the votes last year and shown that Cook won by 12 million? Wouldn’t they also have wanted to protect Archuleta’s cachet or at least avoid undermining it? I just don’t think there is any good reason for not releasing the votes this year — particularly where some controversy has arisen….Unless they want the controversy and free publicity?

à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’Second, how do we know that all the power texted votes arenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t already being thrown out? We have no idea. For all we know, every time AI gets 10 votes at once from a single number, they disregard it. Perhaps people who power-text are already wasting their time. Again, we donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t know..

My assumption is that the entire system is designed to get the more votes possible, why would they throw away tons of votes? They want the biggest number possible, text voting represents a big chunk of that.

Just want to knowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦.what is Kris getting Other than the title à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“American Idolà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  that Adam isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t getting?

Well he’s getting that glorious trophy and he gets a trip to Disneyworld too, I am sure Adam is pissed that he doesn’t get to meet Mickey.
In a more serious note, the winner gets to reappear on Idol twice (it has been like that the last two years) which is a big boost to his/her album sales.

I think the Whatnottosing editorial on Season 8 does a great job of explaining how Kris was pretty much in the running, ever since Country Week. Just because the judges/producers/some of the media didnt laude or pimp him, doesnt mean he didnt produce great performances and quietly gathered votes/fans.

I really appreciate what WNTS does but they are really overeaching with that editorial. I’ve already said it, but by the way they are determining the size of the different fanbases, using a combination of ratings and standard deviation, Allison would have won AI.

If you really like WNTS, there are also several articles they have done at the beginning of the season to see which contestants get more “breaks” during their run on idol, the answer is: a white guy who comes form the South.

If this is true, why would they have released the votes last year and shown that Cook won by 12 million? Wouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t they also have wanted to protect Archuletaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s cachet or at least avoid undermining it? I just donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t think there is any good reason for not releasing the votes this year à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’  particularly where some controversy has arisenà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦.Unless they want the controversy and free publicity?

Because everything they do is to perpetuate the show. They aren’t truly concerned with any contestant. They are ultimately concerned with advertising money. If, by what they did, gets you to keep the American Idol franchise in the headlines, they are doing their job. And please rest assured that there was controversy last year. If you look at some of the threads at this site even, it’s still going on (for a few diehards).

In a more serious note, the winner gets to reappear on Idol twice (the last two years it has been like that) which is a big boost to his/her album sales.

But if Adam’s proves to be the best that Idol has produced ever, one guest spot should be enough. Or he doesn’t need it since he’s going to blow up like Daughtry or Carrie. Right?

I will tell you what else the winner gets – he gets his songs played on the radio because the Idol machine wants the winner to be successful because that makes the show more meaningful. That is of course, if they like the winner. This year they really, really wanted Adam to win so they will be supportive of both. Last year they really wanted Cook to win so they have been more supportive of Cook even though we all know that they also liked Archuleta but they wanted another Daughtry and found that in Cook (who I also like). That doesn’t mean that they don’t like the other two, just that they have their favorites and it is there show, so they can do what they want. The one thing they can’t do forever, is hide from the success of one of the past non-winners because it makes them look foolish so they actually acknowledged them more this year (Hudson, etc.) and this is a good thing. I did notice that they said nothing whatsoever about Archuleta’s 1.7million selling Crush nor did they give him a platinum whatever or say that his album was gold (700,000).

It still doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t look good. I hope those employees received some instruction in public relations. I work for a major airline manufacturer, and an employees public actions most definitely reflects on the company. That is partly why this is a big issue.

oh, yeah, of course it looks bad…. something tells me they are NOT receiving bonuses this yr LOL

i have an issue when i see reports stating “ATT gives out phones to allen fans!!”….without emphasizing the numbers involved. the wording/headlines makes it seem as if ATT as a company sponsored this. again, poor judgement on those few employees but also poor judgement on journalists reporting this story. (not enough fact chking, glossing over idol history, or just missing the whole point on the annoyance of unlimited voting) IMO

dont mind me, im just getting sick of the media in general …the line btw fact and gossip is getting blurrier by the day.

But if Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s proves to be the best that Idol has produced ever, one guest spot should be enough. Or he doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t need it since heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s going to blow up like Daughtry or Carrie. Right?

Carrie who? Adam is the next Elvis/Michael Jackson/Prince, next year he will be filling the Rose Garden and Wembley at the same time.

Um, cmom, I don’t think anyone told Taylor that the winner gets their songs played on the radio!

I did notice that they said nothing whatsoever about Archuletaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s 1.7million selling Crush nor did they give him a platinum whatever or say that his album was gold (700,000).

Don’t remind me :guns_tb:

Other promo the winner gets, btw: Sketcher’s deal, your song played at end of Olympics Opening Ceremony (biggest ratings of the year), your parents bump into Ryan Seacrest during next season’s auditions…. :smiley2_tb:

http://www.gossipgirls.com/adam-lambert/video/kris-allen-and-adam-lambert-stop-chat?profile=315482

Forget textgate and enjoy the sweet-hot-wonderfulness that is Kradam interviewed together for US.

Just want to knowà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ ¦.what is Kris getting Other than the title à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“American Idolà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  that Adam isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t getting?

Well heà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s getting that glorious trophy and he gets a trip to Disneyworld too, I am sure Adam is pissed that he doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t get to meet Mickey.
In a more serious note, the winner gets to reappear on Idol twice (it has been like that the last two years) which is a big boost to his/her album sales.

But if it does end up that Adam is the huge success that most of us are hoping he will be, don’t you think that AI will be cashing in on that next year. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think it states in their contracts that if you win you will come back and sing twice on AI. My guess would be that if Adam does outsell and outshine Kris, that AI will definitely have him back as many times as they want to and as many times as Adam is willing to come back. It’s all about what’s gonna bring them the viewers, so if Adam is a megastar next year, AI will definitely pimp it to the full extent of their abilities. I’d like to see them perform together on something on the AI stage next year. maybe they could reprise we are the champions. All I know is that as of right now, if i watch next year, I won’t be voting for anyone, this year has disillusioned me from the voting aspect of the show, it’s unfair, and is not indicative of a true majority vote.

But if it does end up that Adam is the huge success that most of us are hoping he will be, donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t you think that AI will be cashing in on that next year.

Hard to say, I do think they will have him once during the season but it’s always the champ who comes back for the finale, so it will be really unfair to Kris if they don’t invite him.

AI needs to promote their winners because they give credibility to the show, the fact that they invited both Ruben and Taylor this year shows that they are commited to that.

http://www.gossipgirls.com/adam-lambert/video/kris-allen-and-adam-lambert-stop-chat?profile=315482

Forget textgate and enjoy the sweet-hot-wonderfulness that is Kradam interviewed together for US.

OMG, great interview…my favorite question “Who gets the top bunk on the AI Tour Bus”

Kris Response: I don’t Care, it doesn’t matter to me
Adam’s Response: “I like the top!”

ROFLMAO!!! That gave me a little more insight into him! My mind just got filled with a lot of inappropriate thoughts…Oh to be on that tour bus… :devil_tb:

Well, I think Kradam make a great pair and I think Idol did learn one thing from the David/David year and that is that even a whole year down the road, a successful winner and runner-up can be well-loved enough to attract ticketed sales of 52,000 and thousands more watching a concert of two very different singers and love every minute of it. That made someone a chunk of money and I sure hope that the Davids got a big share for that Manila show!

oops – ticketed

Kris Response: I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t Care, it doesnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t matter to me
Adamà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s Response: à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“I like the top!à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ 

ROFLMAO!!! That gave me a little more insight into him!

And then they just laugh like naughty schoolboys. Those two are totally comfortable with each other. it’s a rare and beautiful thing.

I know that returning to AI has a minor boost in single and or album sales, and the picture on the wall of fame is nice for those idol fans who watch the prelims, and your picture on the opening credits is nice but in reality does this equate to big bucks. If your album or single is a dud and you do a bad performance what good is the “call back”? And as far as pushing a winner’s radio time….I won’t even go there based on some previous winners and their air time.

If the AI crown was all that some people crack it up to be the AI voters would escalate the winner way past multi platinum for every single and album. Twenty Five million viewers should easily be able to handle a couple of million albums. But apparantly that doesn’t equate.

I personally don’t have any argument with the results and I hope both contestants do a phenomenal job now that they are in the real world. I truly believe album and song sales, no matter what the corporate backing, will have a lot to do with the singer himself and his ability to entice someone to buy what he is selling. Hopefully both guys will have success but I don’t think the AI crown is going to make much difference.

And, I sure hope Kris gets a lot of money for singing for the Wal-Mart crowd since none of their “store” employees get much from the Company. But my diatribe on WalMart is not an appropriate discussion for an Idol blog.

Rather, in this instance, ità ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s that AT&T employees turned out at these voting parties and took it upon themselves to bring along AT&T demos to hand out for free use to vote for Kris and tutored those peeps on how to send tons of votes at a time. Those employees who showed up at Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢ watch parties, even if only in a personal capacity, took along products (and arguably information, although this is debatable to me) belonging to AT&T and offered them w/o cost to fans of Kris to vote for Kris à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬’  giving an appearance of AT&T lending support to one contestant over another.

I would really like to take Kris and Adam out of the equation. I believe Kris would still have won because of other factors such as the O’Reilly Show segment. I am a fan of both Adam and Kris.

The issue to address is not who the winner is this season, but rather that the measures that AT&T took reflects on the honesty in voting. This will be an issue for every remaining season unless AI addresses what is acceptable and what is not.

wand3rful May 27th, 2009 at 6:17 pm

Lil Rounds getting to the top 6/7 is more suspicious than this AT&T story.

I kind of agree with this, actually.

Oh lord, now they are reporting on the “AI Controversy” on my local 10P news!

LOL the anchors were cranky about it! One said “Idolgate?” The other goes, “get Woodward and Bernstein on that” :laugh_tb:

Actually, the Olympics were broadcast by NBC not Fox last summer. So ToML was selected by NBC, and not a result of the Idol win. So that was all David Cook and Magic Rainbow. Heh.

Idolgate?! They “gate” everything now. Bwah!^

Actually, the Olympics were broadcast by NBC not Fox last summer. So ToML was selected by NBC, and not a result of the Idol win. So that was all David Cook and Magic Rainbow. Heh.

I doubt NBC used the song simply because they liked it. NBC wouldn’t just give away the opportunity for a song to be heard by practically the whole country in one fell swoop…I’m sure 19 made them an offer they couldn’t refuse. :cool1_tb:

I have already filled out a complaint form with the FCC online under Form 2000A: Deceptive or Unlawful Advertising or Marketing Complaint.

Go to http://esupport.fcc.gov/complaints.htm and then choose – Wireless Telephone.

I’m asking for an investigation. What is the total vote? Why were AT&T employees demo-ing on how to power text before a very large group of people when power texting is considered illegal by AI producers? This is the only way we’re going to get any answers whatsoever.

Just because this is only a reality show, I don’t think you should completely trash democratic principles. Frankly, I”m happy to accept a Kris win but we need to do something to make voting more fair.

This is beyond ridiculous. I do wish that Idol would let us know the margin of difference. Several sources said it was a large margin. One newspaper article quoted something like 63% of the votes for Kris compared to 37% for Adam or something like that. When you are talking about millions of votes, that isn’t even close. That would be something like 26 million votes separating them them. The speculation of one writer was that they didn’t report the difference because there was no need to embarrass the second place contestant. I think if the voting had been really close they would most definitely have announced it as they did between the David’s and that was a 12 million vote margin. You can bet it was bigger than that or AI would have been all over it. AI has always stated on their webpage that they have a way of throwing out votes that appear to be done through some sort of electronic means that would be unfair practices. And, I have to say, I voted for four hours straight and only got through about 100 votes. The lines were simply busy too frequently and the votes couldn’t go through. People who claim to have voted thousands of times are fooling themselves.

Carrie who? Adam is the next Elvis/Michael Jackson/Prince, next year he will be filling the Rose Garden and Wembley at the same time.

A little late to the convo, but if this is the case then AI will be begging Adam to come back on next yr.

Actually, I’m sure they’ll have him on anyway.

BTW, I love Adam (however, Kris was my fav), but if Adam gets to be this big that would be awesome imo.

“Textgate” essentially boils down to a couple employees of AT&T getting into the spirit of things on voting night by attending Kris Allen’s voting parties in Conway. They brought a few phones, showed people how to power text and probably hoped to make a few sales in the process. It all sounds very casual and small town. Probably not the best choice to make but it hardly swung the balance of power to Kris. Power texting was done on both sides, they cancelled each other out. It would be nice if people who were frothing at the mouth over this would just admit that, at the end of the day, they are upset about being outvoted. This whole “fairness” thing only comes up after one side gets an outcome they don’t like. It happens every year. One fanbase or another freaks out over rumors of rampant busy signals or text votes not counting or any number of conspiracy theories. It is the same sour grapes stuff that goes on in presidential elections.

AI voting is what it is and it won’t change because at the end of the day nothing truly illegal is happening (and if it is, it is coming from the voters from all fanbases who find ways around the very minimal voting rules AI has).

ShariG May 28th, 2009 at 12:23 am

This is beyond ridiculous. I do wish that Idol would let us know the margin of difference. Several sources said it was a large margin. One newspaper article quoted something like 63% of the votes for Kris compared to 37% for Adam or something like that. When you are talking about millions of votes, that isnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t even close. That would be something like 26 million votes separating them them. The speculation of one writer was that they didnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t report the difference because there was no need to embarrass the second place contestant. I think if the voting had been really close they would most definitely have announced it as they did between the Davidà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s and that was a 12 million vote margin. You can bet it was bigger than that or AI would have been all over it. AI has always stated on their webpage that they have a way of throwing out votes that appear to be done through some sort of electronic means that would be unfair practices. And, I have to say, I voted for four hours straight and only got through about 100 votes. The lines were simply busy too frequently and the votes couldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t go through. People who claim to have voted thousands of times are fooling themselves.

Actually you can use your computer and download a couple of programs (Gitmo?) that dials multiple phone lines very quidkly, from multiple time zones and internationally. There are many ways to get power voting done these days. Idol just doesn’t want to upgrade the system, it would make them look bad when the total votes come way down.

Actually you can use your computer and download a couple of programs (Gitmo?) that dials multiple phone lines very quidkly, from multiple time zones and internationally.

This statement is not entirely accurate. While Gizmo does allow you to call during the voting period for a time zone different from your own, it does not allow you to dial multiple phone lines. And the dialing process is hardly quick. Quite the opposite, in fact.

I actually tried to use Gizmo as a third phone line (in addition to my landline and cell phone) to vote on F2 night, but I was able to get in only a few votes using it. With Gizmo, you connect to a Gizmo server through your computer, which then places the call. On F2 night, it was almost impossible to connect to the Gizmo server due to the volume of traffic. I probably only connected one time for every 30 or so attempts I made. Almost all of my attempts timed out before connecting. And most of the time when I did connect and was able to complete the call to AI, I got a busy signal. So, using Gizmo was by no means an advantage. I finally gave up on it, and ended up voting only on my land and cell lines.

One newspaper article quoted something like 63% of the votes for Kris compared to 37% for Adam or something like that.

WOW! I find that so hard to believe. The first season, Kelly got 60% of the votes (Justin, 40%). Just to settle this matter, I wish AI would just give out the vote totals.

“”"”"”"Just to settle this matter, I wish AI would
just give out the vote totals.”"”"”"”"”"

Kris and Adam are happy with the results, so what is the point?
I can see making corrections in the voting system for future years,
but no good of any kind would be gained by knowing “the magic
numbers.”

I’m cackling over people contacting the FCC. Some tried this with the Clay/Ruben debacle, and they refused to get involved. This isn’t a game show, but considered entertainment, so this is a no go with them.

dial it back, please

I am still hoping Anoop will have a successful career regardless what arena it is in (recording, television, movies, stage); I do not have anything invested in who the winner is. I do wish success to both Adam and Kris.

MJ, I see your blog is mentioned on the VH1 website.

And I guess that would make you a Kris fan.

Actually I was a fan of both Adam and Kris, but voted for Adam after the F2 (on my Stone Age land line, where I managed to get in a whopping 5 or 6 votes after dialing for three hours) because I thought, in spite of the most OTT pimping I’ve witnessed in six years of viewing the show, I thought he’d earned it. And because I also feared the inevitable backlash against Kris if he won.

There’s nothing “fair” about American Idol, from the earliest audition rounds up until the final votes are cast. As frustrating and, yes, infuriating, as much of the show’s antics and ridiculous voting structure are, to equate Kris’s victory to the disastrous results of Bush v. Gore strikes me as slightly silly. YMMV, of course.

to equate Krisà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s victory to the disastrous results of Bush v. Gore strikes me as slightly silly. YMMV, of course.

LOL, ain’t that the truth!!!

The FCC? Gimmeabreak!

Wishing doom on the career of an aspiring artist? Wow, that’s low.

All of this is very revealing, although not terribly enlightening…

I am still hoping Anoop will have a successful career regardless what arena it is in (recording, television, movies, stage); I do not have anything invested in who the winner is. I do wish success to both Adam and Kris.

I feel exactly the same way, Grammie Kari. I also like Allison and a couple of others that I hope do well but Anoop’s my guy. :wub_tb:

I’d love if they’d revamp the voting process and not allow mega dialing/texting even though I use Dial Idol and text myself. I wonder who’d have won over the seasons if they’d started the way that DWTS did in limiting votes?

“Wouldnà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t they also have wanted to protect Archuletaà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢s cachet or at least avoid undermining it?”

Midway through the season the producers put their weight behind Cook and did whatever they could to slow Archie down, denying him song choices and vetoing arrangements. They also were the source for negative publicity about his Dad. Archie was perceived as a potential competitor–and still is. The situation is different with Kris and Adam. Both will be managed by 19M–so the producers have an interest in protecting the reputations of both.

I can embrace the wonderfulness of Kradam, and still push for reform of the AI Voting system.

Just because this is only a reality show, I donà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã¢â€ž ¢t think you should completely trash democratic principles. Frankly, Ià ¢Ã¢â€š ¬ m happy to accept a Kris win but we need to do something to make voting more fair.

I agree 100%. There is nothing American about AI Voting. But TPTB have very wisely worked to ensure that AI is classified as a reality show rather than a game show or talent contest.

In the 1950′s, it took two years of contestant complaints, a congressional investigation and public hearing, and irrefutable evidence from Twenty-One contestant James Snodgrass, who had sent registered letters to himself containing the advance answers, before the TV networks were forced to stop fixing game show results.

I don’t think that AI will fall into that kind of trap. They give all the contestants enough exposure, money and support to keep them positive about the show. (Clay may be the exception to this, and IMO he seems to have fed the story that he got robbed. And maybe he did.) And they completely control access to all the voting systems, data and most of the results. We have no idea if they have ever revealed the real votes. Telescope is not an independent auditing firm.

TPTB have made sure to remain classified as a “reality show” and not fall under the game show standards and practices. The disclosure at the end of the show even says that they have the right to modify the outcome for entertainment value. BUT when the quiz show scandal started, there were no standards and practices about this either.

Americans own the broadcast airways and, through the FCC, grant licenses to the networks to use those airways in the public interest. TPTB at AI have seen fit to constantly refer to the voters as “America”, “Did American get this right?”, And this show is broadcast in over 100 countries — in many ways it does represent America to viewers around the world. I think Fox and AI have an obligation to institute fair and transparent voting processes — processes that represent the best of America — no matter who wins.

If you really like WNTS, there are also several articles they have done at the beginning of the season to see which contestants get more à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã…“breaksà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬  during their run on idol, the answer is: a white guy who comes form the South.

1. There is no amount of “pimping” that could overcome the advantages that Kris had in winning this vote. Two examples:

Southerns always beat Westerns.– No one whose home town is in a “tape delayed” market has ever beaten
someome from a “live” market.
– AT&T cell phone subscribers are more likely to be in the mid-west and South.
– AI Viewership is strongest in Southern markets; lowest in the West

Country is the #1 music genre in the US and AI demos skew even more to Country voters.
– No way country fans were going to vote for Adam. Kris may be in denial that he has country cross-over appeal, but he does.

Add to that the fact that Adam was not MOR and clearly pushed boundaries — both in style and music.

2. TPTB are only interested in one thing — ratings. Adam was good for ratings — and they clearly wanted him in the final. I am convinced that they did not want him to win. If they wanted Adam to win, they would have portrayed him as something more that the “Broadway” singer. They would have let viewers know he has done a lot of other kinds of music, highlighted that he was born in Indiana, they would have shown more of his Mom and Dad on the hometown visit — they would have humanized him more. And the judges would not have called him “theatrical”, “indulgent” and even “you make me feel sleazy”.

3. I do not think Adam wanted to win. He understood that he could use AI as a platform to gain fame and define himself in a commercially viable way — but still remain true to himself. Now he doesn’t have to transform himself into a recording artist, he just need to produce the album his fans are waiting for. This is exactly what Daughtry successfully did.

4. If Adam wanted to play the Idol game, he would have won the contest but had more difficulty with his future commercial success. It takes 10 minutes on YouTube to determine that if the blond Adam had shown up on AI, and sung a classic AI mix of classics, ballads and pop music, he could have won. We would not of had “guy liner vs. the guy next door”; we just would have had the guy who can really sing. I’m certain that Adam has enough talent and control over his voice that he could have reined in his high notes, and even sung a traditional country ballad. (Of course, I would have not been an Adam fan and maybe even missed a show or two.)

http://www.krisallenofficial.com

http://www.krisallenofficial.com
Kris