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John Sergeant to pull out of Strictly

May 10 2008 - the problem

The BBC has admitted that it banked £106,000 that should have gone to causes such as Children in Need and Comic Relief in the latest phone-in scandal to affect the corporation.

Viewers who contacted fundraising phone-ins but whose calls were received just after the lines had closed were still charged for the call and a BBC subsidiary kept the money.

Sir Michael Lyons, Chairman of the BBC Trust, which uncovered the practice, expressed regret for what he described as “a failure in terms of the behaviour of staff and of the BBC’s own systems”. He added: “This did not help the BBC or the people we serve.”

Adding to the corporation’s embarrassment was a further revelation that it left out tens of thousands of phone-in votes in last year’s British heat of the Eurovision Song Contest, although it did not affect the result of the competition, which was won by Scooch.

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One of the programme’s presenters, Sir Terry Wogan and Fearne Cotton, called mistakenly for votes before the phone lines had opened and although callers were charged, their votes were not counted. Calls received outside the voting period on the programme amounted to 38 per cent of the total.

The Eurovision heat took place on an error-strewn night for the programme, which involved viewers voting on who should represent Britain in the annual competition. At the end of the show, Sir Terry mistakenly announced the wrong winner and had to be corrected by his co-presenter.

Yesterday, Sir Michael ordered the corporation to hand over the £106,000 to the charities, plus £6,000 to cover the Eurovision mistake and added interest — resulting in a total payment of £123,000. “There may be disciplinary action. There is no room for complacency here,” Sir Michael said, and promised that the BBC would make an on-air apology to viewers.

The telephone calls were handled by a BBC subsidiary, Audiocall, part of its commercial arm, BBC Worldwide. It organised fundraising phone-in competitions on programmes including Sports Personality of the Year, Strictly Come Dancing and How Do You Solve a Problem Like Maria? Calls typically cost 25p, with half the money going to charity, but in some cases viewers were charged as much as £1.50.

Keeping all the money raised from late calls occurred between October 2005 and August 2007. There is no suggestion that anybody benefited personally from keeping the money, although the practice was known only to a small number of the corporation’s employees within Audiocall and uncovered only as part of a review of all phone-ins by the business consultants PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The auditor, in its review, said that “the practice might be perceived as improper conduct” but it added that it had not had the chance to make a full investigation into why money that viewers intended to donate to charity was retained in BBC accounts. The BBC’s revelations come only a day after ITV admitted that a comedy award was wrongly presented to Anthony McPartlin and Declan Donnelly when viewers had actually voted for Catherine Tate. ITV was fined £5.7 million by Ofcom for a string of other phone-in breaches.

“We are not talking about anything of the scale of what happened at ITV, even when you add all of the BBC’s lapses together,” Sir Michael said.

The BBC has admitted deceiving viewers by running phone-ins to programmes such as Blue Peter and Comic Relief in which callers had no chance of winning.
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after reading that article all i can say is the judges and contestents who complain can go fuck themselves

the moment you added in the celebrity angle who had fucking sold out

now the public are now voting for who they like AS YOU FUCKING ASKED THEM TOO

i actually used to like strickly come dancing years back when it was a proper dancing competition but now it's just a fucking horible pile of shit

it should be replaced with by john sargents dance show where users ring up and get to vote on what song john dances to next week
 
What a shower of shit. They have bullied him off the show. I think it was that shite old salsa (?) he did 2 weeks ago that really did for him and turned up the volume of criticism.

He was quite appalling and should have gone then, but he survived- more power to him, at least he was entertaining.

It has been a such an excruciatingly dull season, with flaccid bland contestants hardly anyone gives a toss about. The only sparkle on the show came from John.

He should have been voted off legitimately. They made it impossible for him to go out there and dance with his head heald up. The judges and that fat heat James Jordan have shamed John off the show.

If there are going to be dance-off rule changes next year, there it should also be the case that outside the Saturday night show, the judges should *not* comment on the dancers.
They should have a standard response to questions about contestants - 'Watch the show on Saturdays for my opinion.'
 
I think people have forgotten this is an entertainment show.If they wanted it to be a real dancing competition it would be on Sunday nights at midnight like Come dancing used to be.
 
Why? is his name on the BNP list then?:confused::D don't watch this but always liked Sergeant,always good value on panel games
 
Badger Kitten said:
New rule being introduced for next year - 3 strikes and you're out.

No more left-footers being saved by the public
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Wouldn't have stopped John, though: he was never in a dance-off. Had he been, the judges would have got rid of him.

No, their problem was the public kept keeping him out of the dance-off. Which is their tough luck: it's a celebrity dance show with a phone-in element, not a "please phone in to endorse the judges' scores" thing.
 
And nobody, but nobody would want to watch permatanned weirdos in sequins from Milton Keynes doing some bizarre steps from a bygone age. Arlene and Bruno Tonioli can go preside over this charmless pervertland all they like.

But on Saturday Night tv primetime they can go fuck themselves, the smug po-faced wankers. Nobody really cares about the dancing - it's all about the entertainment. We want John Barnes samba'ing it up in a ludicrous dayglo catsuit, not some superannuated ponce waffling on about foot position.
 
tarannau said:
And nobody, but nobody would want to watch permatanned weirdos in sequins from Milton Keynes doing some bizarre steps from a bygone age. Arlene and Bruno Tonioli can go preside over this charmless pervertland all they like.

But on Saturday Night tv primetime they can go fuck themselves, the smug po-faced wankers. Nobody really cares about the dancing - it's all about the entertainment. We want John Barnes samba'ing it up in a ludicrous dayglo catsuit, not some superannuated ponce waffling on about foot position.
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Exactly.

Dancing (proper dancing, not Gradgrindian fuckwittery) is supposed to be fun. What I enjoyed about John was that he was having fun. He was the embodiment of the amateur ideal: an ordinary bloke learning how to dance, and having fun doing so. It gave me pleasure to watch him.

Why book people like John if they don't want him in the show? Why not only book athletes all pre-tested for dance aptitude? I'll tell you why - it'd be a boring show, that's why.
 
Seeing as the phone-in cash no longer goes to CIN, then 100% of the vote off decision should be left to the audience at home- as happens on the American version of the show.

There is no need for a dance off.
 
i'm glad to see the back of john - but i don't think he should've walked. i'm damned sure the judges won't have wanted that either. They've always said - in every series when the public props up a pet lame duck - that their frustration isn't with the dancer but the tastes of the british public.

Badger Kitten said:
New rule being introduced for next year - 3 strikes and you're out.

No more left-footers being saved by the public
Click to expand...

This is appalling.:oops: Utterly awful idea!

danny la rouge said:
Wouldn't have stopped John, though: he was never in a dance-off. Had he been, the judges would have got rid of him.

No, their problem was the public kept keeping him out of the dance-off. Which is their tough luck: it's a celebrity dance show with a phone-in element, not a "please phone in to endorse the judges' scores" thing.
Click to expand...

that isn't what they're suggesting. They're saying if you have 3 weeks in a row of being lowest on the judges leaderboard, you're out. I'm not sure, but i reckon that would have stuffed some of the dancers over the years who actually went on to improve - even if not win.:rolleyes:
 
Do you think that this is good publicity for the show, for the light entertainment telly show?

(Not this thread, but the publicity in general?)

:)
 
christonabike said:
Do you think that this is good publicity for the show, for the light entertainment telly show?

(Not this thread, but the publicity in general?)

:)
Click to expand...

I certainly think it may encourage more viewers this weekend who want to see what the fuss is about and watch John's "last dance". Not sure about in general

I think if they start fiddling with the rules so the public has less of a say then that would put people, including me, off watching it.
 
Why the fuck is this shit the only thing on Sky News this afternoon???

Can someone summarise why this is so fucking important??
 
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