» My Eyes! Scandals on American Idol Options

[Ninja Bunny]

Four judges, letting the audience-bots boo at virtually every comment and bickering amongst the judges adds up to overrun. It's poor time management and Ryan, who is normally a good timekeeper, needs to do a better job of reining them in.

let's talk forever with contestants 1 - 7

That too. The contestants have the chance to talk during the roll-ins and on elimination day. There's no reason to waste time with them after the judges give their comments.

This post has been edited by Ninja Bunny: Apr 12, 2009 @ 9:37 pm.

[mickeybordentwo]

AT&T May Have Swayed 'Idol' Results

According to an article in the business section of the New York TImes

Representatives of AT&T, whose mobile phone network is the only one that can be used to cast "American Idol" votes via text message, provided the free text-messaging services at two parties in Arkansas after the final performance episode of "American Idol" last week, according to the company and people at the events.

This is currently the most emailed article in the business section. It's a bad nasty scandal waiting to erupt.

[foultemptress]

AT&T May Have Swayed 'Idol' Results


According to an article in the business section of the New York TImes

Representatives of AT&T, whose mobile phone network is the only one that can be used to cast "American Idol" votes via text message, provided the free text-messaging services at two parties in Arkansas after the final performance episode of "American Idol" last week, according to the company and people at the events.


This is currently the most emailed article in the business section. It's a bad nasty scandal waiting to erupt.

Saw that on GMA this morning, be interesting to see how this plays out.

[guano loca]

Read about AT&T Textgate on Huff Post this morning. I'd like to hear a LOT more details on this.

[BarkaSnark]

Wow! Just saw that story on the local Fox outlet here in LA.

Invokes numerous questions. Maybe a congressional investigation of TPTB?

- How are votes actually counted?
- Is there a system in place to filter out "fraudulent" votes?
- If power texting is so easy, how many people are power texting out of the total votes received?
- How many votes were sent from these specific phones? Can AI remove these from the totals?
- Could we have our first "re-coronation?"
- Would Adam really want to sing that song or would he defer to Kris! :)

[blackwing]

Seriously? The media is trying to make it look like AT&T unfairly made Kris the winner. I very much doubt that the text votes from Conway Arkansas skewed the results. First off, what is the population of Conway Arkansas, and how does it compare to the population of San Diego? Secondly, the entire nation has access to AT&T texting. Anyone who has an iPhone with a free text package can text to their little fingers desire for two hours, not just the people in Conway Arkansas who probably represent 0.0000001% of the nation's population. Thirdly, it seems like AT&T would have gone to the Adam party too, but the Adam party organizers didn't think about it.

If there is some kind of invalidation or John O'Hurley / Kelly Monaco do-over, I am SO DONE with this show. Kris won fair and square and I think the media that trumpeted and proclaimed Adam the winner weeks ago is just bitter and trying to save face.

[grammamia]

Apparently AT&T's cell phone coverage in the west..ie California is spotty at best, but has great coverage in the south!
Having free phones for multi texting parties in Kris' hometown and not providing the same for Adam is unfair.

[karashi]

I think perhaps it's a valid concern - text msgs were inherently limited by cost per text.

Not only were the text messages free, but they also shown how to multi-send the text, so that each text was sent 10 times. Adam's fans could presumably done the same thing, but they'd be paying for those. So that small voting segment could have a pretty large effect (basically, x10, x UnlimitedMoney)

Enough to sway the results? I doubt it. I don't think Adam wants that dumb song anyway.

Edit:
Reading more carefully, they brought 'a small number of phones' for the texting to be done on. So likely this is a non-issue. Cagey that they didn't specify how many phones.

This post has been edited by karashi: May 27, 2009 @ 10:37 am.

[mickeybordentwo]

Here's how the New York Times finished their article (linked above):

Representatives of AT&T helped fans of Mr. Allen at the two Arkansas events by providing instructions on how to send 10 or more text messages at the press of a single button, known as power texts. Power texts have an exponentially greater effect on voting than do single text messages or calls to the show’s toll-free phone lines. The efforts appear to run afoul of “American Idol” voting rules in two ways. The show broadcasts an on-screen statement at the end of each episode warning that blocks of votes cast using “technical enhancements” that unfairly influence the outcome of voting can be thrown out.

And the show regularly states that text voting is open only to AT&T subscribers and is subject to normal rates.

Originally, I thought of this particular AI scandal as being similar to Paula's commenting on a performance Jason had yet to make, but now it feels more like the 2002 Olympic Pairs Skating Scandal. Everyone knew that figure skating judging had elements of corruption to it, but there was at least some pretense of fairness. When the mask was removed, it was a golden (so to speak) opportunity for righteous indignation and lots and lots of press coverage.

American Idol and AT&T are two monoliths that go hand in glove. This is a great chance to attack both of them simultaneously. The print version of the Times article is buried deep in their business section; if I hadn't known to look for it, I probably wouldn't have even found it. But the more coverage it gets, the more it will engender. And like the pairs scandal, none of this is Kris's fault, but in many ways, he'll be as victimized as Adam.

[QuiGonJ]

I honestly doubt AT&T gives a care who wins the thing. They don't get a percentage of the record sales, and there would be major egg on their face if they were found out. Sounds like some local sales reps wanted to plug texting to people they thought weren't up on it, so the local reps could sell the people texting packages. I doubt it was a grand red-state conspiracy to keep Adam from the masses, specially since everyone knows second place through fourth can get at least a one-record deal somewhere.

[sandrajane]

The NY Times is getting their info from a NWAnews.com (Northwest Arkansas) online article. The parties the NY Times is referring to wasn't at someone's house.

A crowd of about 2,000 signwaving, cheering, texting supporters of Conway's Kris Allen filled up the better part of the home side of the UCA Bears' stadium for the pop-culture finals of the Fox network's eighth season of American Idol, playing on the scoreboard's big screen...

...In Conway after Tuesday's performances, fans at the Estes Stadium watch party took out wireless phones and started making calls and firing off text messages - some voting on their own devices and others on phones borrowed from AT&T, which supplied about 50 display units and representatives to teach multiple "power texting."

AT&T also made about 30 phones available in a "texting zone" at a watch party at the Peabody Little Rock hotel, where Megan Lynch and friend Rainey Gibson, both 22, watched Allen perform his first song of the night, Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine."

This post has been edited by sandrajane: May 27, 2009 @ 10:57 am.

[TiffanyNichelle]

If there is some kind of invalidation or John O'Hurley / Kelly Monaco do-over, I am SO DONE with this show. Kris won fair and square and I think the media that trumpeted and proclaimed Adam the winner weeks ago is just bitter and trying to save face.

I agree. If this is how it goes down I'm going to be so pissed.

[blackwing]

I always thought the blurb about throwing out votes with technical enhancements was about people using their computers to massively redial the numbers. Weren't there accusations of this in the earlier seasons?

Anybody who wants to can learn how to power text. If the Adam fans wanted to learn how to power text, they could have learned. Also, as I said, many people nowadays have unlimited free text messaging. So it's not necessarily about the cost.

If you have an iPhone, you have AT&T. There have to be hundreds of thousands or millions of people living in Southern California that have an iPhone, and I really think that Adam would have a bigger population base than that of Arkansas, if his fans were dedicated enough. If they had wanted to learn how to power text, they could.

I don't know what power texting means. Does it mean you enter the address 10 times, then type "Vote" in the body, and it gets sent 10 times? How is that any faster than sending 10 individual texts? You still have to enter the "5702" address ten times and type "Vote" once. For me, on my iPhone, I texted to 5702 and typed Vote. Then I hit send. Then for every single subsequent text, my text page to 5702 was already open, so all I had to do was type Vote and hit send. It was very simple and if I had the desire I could have done this for two hours. Is this what is being complained about by the New York Times?

I feel really bad for Kris out of all this. He seems like a nice guy, and he doesn't deserve this. He's already facing questions regarding whether he beat Adam partly because of homophobia, and now he's going to have to deal with these "well he only won because of AT&T" comments from the media for a long long time.

[Peanutbuttercup]

blackwing, at least with some AT&T phones, you can set up a "contact group" and include ten different names, all with the same text number. So you set up a contact group with Kris1 at 5702, Kris2 at 5702, Kris3 at 5702, etc. Name the contact group VoteKris (or whatever). Then, when you go to text, you go into your contacts, select VoteKris, type the message vote, hit send, and you've texted ten times.
Honestly, I'm as big an Adam fan as anyone, and I think this whole thing is a ridiculous tempest in a teapot. I don't think this changed the ultimate outcome at all. I hate the "OMG Adam wuz robbed!" crap and am sorry to see it getting any sort of legitimate or quasi-legitimate press.

[sandrajane]

I don't think the problem here is power texting. Every one of those contestants had at least one person power texting for them. The issue should be is it a conflict of interest for AT&T, one of if not the biggest sponsor of AI, to allow employees/representives to be involved in the voting of one and only one contestant. That doesn't sound right.