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Poll: If the Winner of ‘American Idol’ was Chosen Democratically–One Person, One Vote–the Outcome Would Have Been Different

May 27, 2010  •  Post A Comment

One of the particular oddities about the audience picking the winner of "American Idol"–or for that matter, who get gets eliminated every week–is that it’s not democratic.

If it was democratic, it would be one person, one vote. Of course the way ‘Idol" works is that viewers can "stuff the ballot box," so to speak, by voting as many times as they wish.

According to a poll by HCD reseach, which talked to 3,901 viewers of "Idol" on Tuesday and Wednesday, May 25 and 26, Crystal Bowersox received 66.2% of the votes and Lee Dewyze only received 33.8% of the votes. The methodology of the poll was that each person got a single vote.

In a statement  Glenn Kessler, president and CEO, HCD Research, said,“I would be interested to see a frequency distribution of the number of votes per person for the American Idol final vote. My guess is that you would see a smaller number of people voting many times, which does not give an accurate reflection of which contestant the majority of viewers wanted to win.”

During the finale Ryan Seacrest usually says how many votes were received. He did not do this on Wednesday night’s show, leading to widespread speculation that the number of votes were fewer than last year.

What is known is that the ratings for the finale were down significantly. Click here to see that story.

2 Comments

  1. TV is simple. Do a show that get’s numbers than just keep doing it. What? Just get the format down, keep the cast of players (no matter how much Paula want$) and train the viewer to keep watching, like small puppies need to be trained to go on the paper. TV, Radio, Film, Theater is truly that simple. But when you start showing your hand (Producers) that you’ll drop this person or start messing with the rules, just like outsider politicians who don’t really bring “change” — the puppies, (public) starts to sniff, then scratch at the door wanting out… and if you dont stay on track to how you trained the puppy, they run the moment you open the door with the slighest crack. And why does this happen – giant egos who think, “If I just put down enough WeeWee Pads everything will be fine”. No, the viewer smells the stink and soon someone else in your building is walking your dog… and before long you just come home to an empty apt. that stinks. Ernie Kovacs was said to have said, “just do the same thing over and over, beat it to death, then beat it some more and then resurrect it”. Happy TV-ing!

  2. I really like the colors here on your blog. did you design this yourself or did you outsource it to a professional?

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