Ah, wouldn't it be a perfect ending to the year if ITV bosses were forced to admit another phone in fuck up had altered the outcome of one of their biggest phone in vote shows. We should stress ITV maintain that there were no major problems with the voting system for this weekend's 'X-Factor' final, but media regulator OfCom has announced it is looking into complaints from viewers who claim they were unable to vote for runner up Rhydian Roberts, who had been the favourite to win the contest.
About 80 people have complained to the regulator, saying their repeated attempts to make phone votes for Roberts were unsuccessful because they always got an engaged tone when they called. One viewer in the Welsh town of Llandrindod Wells told the BBC: "If you ring ten times you expect to get through - I was very cross. A lot of other people in this area said they couldn't get through. It seems to be very unfair".
Of course, it's inevitable that phone systems will struggle to cope with high demand votes, and TV bosses have pointed out that while some viewers may have got engaged tones, that problem was likely to have equally affected those voting for all contestants, so it wouldn't have actually skewed the vote. Though with Saturday's vote so close, and with the general public so aware of the all the dodgy phone ins that have gone on in recent years, especially at ITV, such arguments from TV execs won't necessarily convince aggrieved Rhydian fans.
Outrage is biggest in Wales, where Roberts harks from. So much so one Welsh radio company has announced it will boycott the debut single from the TV's show actual winner - Leon Jackson - despite it being set to be Christmas number one, because of their belief their man Roberts should have been releasing the X-Factor winner single this year. The Town & Country Broadcasting Group, who are staging the boycott, run various Welsh stations, including Bridgend's Bridge FM, Swansea Bay Radio, Radio Carmarthenshire and Radio Pembrokeshire.
TV bosses have admitted that customers calling from the Virgin Media phone network will have experienced particular problems getting through to the X-Factor vote lines. A spokeswoman told reporters yesterday: "Phone lines were monitored throughout the night and there were no issues on voting lines. Some Virgin Media customers did experience problems getting through because of high call volumes, but there were no other reported faults on the lines".
A spokesperson for Virgin Media added: "We are currently looking into the X Factor matter but so far have not found anything unusual. However, we do know that the large volume of calls meant that some viewers had to keep redialling in order to get through. This is not unusual, for any of the telephone networks, for this type of mass voting event".