All of those SMS voting things are scams.

The only winners are the telcos and the TV station who end up with the $$$

"America's Sexiest Baby, Who Wants to Date an Accountant?, USA's Got Puppies and regional competitions for World's Greatest Grandma."

Arnt you forgetting "Who Wants to Fuck a Millionaire?, The next American Drug Dealer?, The Next Michael Vick? and who can forget The Next 'HONEST' President?"

Yet again I repeat. I hate this country.

Read Frank's comment...

http://adam-lambert.org/power-texting-with-att/

as bad as Britain is, I'm staying.

but have you watched British TV recently? I could feel my IQ being leeched, so much so that I felt the desire to shop in Tesco.

I always knew I'd reach this point, but never expected it so soon. Nevertheless I must ask.......

The other shows listed at the end of the article......are they real or made up?

(coat cos it's a genuine question that I feel may require a swift exit)

Yeah, it's in this rather biggish room with lots of cable going to it and a sign that says "No entry - NSA only"

TBH that really didn't have anything to do with it. The winner of American Idol, is prolly picked the same way X-Factor is picked over here, if the favourite would be able to hold there own anyway without being crowned the winner then the second favourite would get the deal as they wouldn't go anywhere without the contract.

The best example is Rhydian, he should have won X-Factor a few years ago but he wouldn't have had any trouble getting a contract once he got the airtime whether he won or not. Leon needed the contract as his allround performance wasn't strong enough for him to go it alone. Therefore Leon was always likely to win as Cowell would be able to make money from Rhydian without Rhydian actually winning, so he got two money makers for the price of one.

Not exactly fair but makes good business sense.

...but it always ends up being the same as everything else around at the moment. Even if - somehow - someone different does get through, the judges normally weed them out before the audience get to start voting.

Having said that, anyone with enough independance and self-awareness to listen to something more than just the 'pop' charts probably has too high an IQ to waste money voting for these sham "contests" anyway.

Mine's the one with the Deep Purple tickets in the pocket...