American Idol - Results (Thursday, March 3, 2011) - Don't You (Forget About Them)

[Allskate]

I can understand AI producers wanting someone who can actually sell CDs to win. What I can't understand is why if they want to manipulate results they don't have more control over who goes home like SYTYCD does. Or limit votes like America's Got Talent does. Allowing unlimited power voting puts too much control in the hands of the group most likely to spend hours doing it, ie the teens, who seem to vote for whoever is the cutest.

The usually have a phone company sponsoring them, including adds for unlimited texting plans, so I don't think they'll do away with the unlimited voting. Also, I don't think it's just teens who power vote. Maybe they were the ones voting for Tim Urban, but I don't think they were the primary ones voting for Lee or David Cook. And Casey had a lot of cougar support.

I honestly don't think the Idol producers care whether it's Karen, Haley, or Ashthon that goes home this week. They want to keep their favorite singers and the ones who add interest and variety to the show. They'd only care if it were Lauren, Pia, and probably James or Casey who went home this week. So, I don't think the taping is due to trying to manipulate the results. It's due to ineptitude.

[PeterG]

Didn't the "Rock Star" show have the audience voting for who they liked, resulting in the bottom three...and then the JUDGES picked who would go?

What do people think of this idea for American Idol?

[PrincessLeppard]

Didn't the "Rock Star" show have the audience voting for who they liked, resulting in the bottom three...and then the JUDGES picked who would go?

What do people think of this idea for American Idol?

Yes, and they got a chance to save themselves. And sometimes the judges still sent the wrong person home. IMO, of course.

I don't know. If you look at the first season of Rock Star, the final three consisted of someone who had NEVER been in the bottom three (MiG), someone who'd been there once (Marty ), and someone who'd been there several times (JD).

JD won.

So.

Yeah.

[taf2002]

The usually have a phone company sponsoring them, including adds for unlimited texting plans, so I don't think they'll do away with the unlimited voting. Also, I don't think it's just teens who power vote. Maybe they were the ones voting for Tim Urban, but I don't think they were the primary ones voting for Lee or David Cook. And Casey had a lot of cougar support.

I honestly don't think the Idol producers care whether it's Karen, Haley, or Ashthon that goes home this week. They want to keep their favorite singers and the ones who add interest and variety to the show. They'd only care if it were Lauren, Pia, and probably James or Casey who went home this week. So, I don't think the taping is due to trying to manipulate the results. It's due to ineptitude.

Phone cos don't make extra money if ten zillion people call an 800#. And many people have a cell phone plan now for unlimited texts, so that doesn't make anyone money either.

And I do think the Idol producers would care if one of their favs went home, esp one of the annoited ones. I didn't say the taping was due to trying to manipulate results. The OTT pimping, esp for Lauren (why I don't know, she's NOT my fav) is IMO trying to manipulate votes. And they do it every year, many times without getting the result they want. I'm just saying, if they want to manipulate results (and they have been accused of it many times) then a more effective method like limiting votes would be the way to go.

Personally, I would like to see the bottom 2 or 3 have a sing-off with the judges deciding who goes home ala SYTYCD AND without the producers putting any input into the process. Nigel needs to have a show with judges & producers picking the winners or else he needs to BUTT OUT. But pretending that America is choosing the winner is just asinine now...how stupid do they think we are?

[Allskate]

Didn't the "Rock Star" show have the audience voting for who they liked, resulting in the bottom three...and then the JUDGES picked who would go?

What do people think of this idea for American Idol?

I wouldn't like it. Nigel would use it to save his favorites even when America didn't like them. He did that repeatedly on SYTYCD. And I didn't agree with his opinions. If people think that Nigel doesn't like the cute, young ones staying on the show regardless of talent, then they haven't seen Nigel at work on SYTYCD.

Phone cos don't make extra money if ten zillion people call an 800#. And many people have a cell phone plan now for unlimited texts, so that doesn't make anyone money either.

I don't know how they're doing it this season and what the ads will be, but in previous seasons you had to have a particular cell phone company in order to text and they had a gazillion ads regarding unlimited texting. The pricing of unlimited texting is one thing that telephone companies compete on, which is why they were willing to spend so much money advertising their plan on Idol. The show definitely has used their voting system to get phone sponsors and ads in the past. But, even putting that aside, I think the producers think that viwers get more invested in the show if they can vote countless times. I don't see this changing any time soon. Also, limiting the number of votes wouldn't necessarily result in manipulation that the producers like anyway. And they clearly want young viewers, so cutting back on text voting is not something that would appeal to the producers.

[rfisher]

Unfortunately for them, the young voters they're getting aren't those 18 yos. I polled my students (20-30) yesterday and none watch AI. In the past it was only the older students who had kids who watched and they were watching with their kids.