Media watchdog to investigate 'X-Factor' voting

Media watchdog Ofcom is looking into complaints from 'X Factor' viewers who claim they could not get through to vote for runner-up Rhydian Roberts.

The Welsh singer was the hot favourite to win, but narrowly lost out to Leon Jackson on Saturday night's show.

Ofcom has received 80 complaints from viewers.

"They expressed concerns about the operation of the voting and many said they were struggling to get through," an Ofcom spokesman said.

An 'X Factor' spokeswoman denied any voting irregularities.

'X Factor' production company Talkback Thames admitted some viewers trying to register their votes were met with the engaged tone.

But they blamed it on the sheer volume of calls and insisted the contest was not rigged.

“As all numbers go through to the same lines and vote platform, it is impossible for there to be any bias in favour or against a particular contestant,” a spokeswoman said.

“Phone lines were monitored throughout the night and there were no issues on voting lines.

“We do get a huge surge of calls and depending on phone operators some callers may have experienced an engaged tone or network busy message and therefore may have to call back, but these calls should not be charged.

“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 Virgin Media spokesperson said: “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.”

Rhydian fans flooded the ITV website with complaints and accusations that the contest was fixed.

They expressed astonishment that 18-year-old Scot Leon had won the £1m (€1.4m) recording contract.

“Not since Maradona’s ’Hand of God’ has British television witnessed such an outrageous injustice,” said one. “Leon was way out of his league against Rhydian. Who on earth voted for him? He must have one huge family!”

Another Rhydian fan wrote: “It is a travesty. I tried countless times to vote for Rhydian and couldn’t get through. How many other people also couldn’t vote for him? I like Leon, but he could not compare with Rhydian.”

“We tried at least 20-30 times during the show to vote for Rhydian and we kept getting a message saying: ’You have not been charged for this call’,” a fan complained, while another declared: “I have no doubt the show was a fix. My wife tried to get through all evening to vote for Rhydian and only got an engaged tone.”

One Rhydian supporter challenged Simon Cowell to release both versions of new single 'When You Believe'.

“Come on, release both singles – Leon and Rhydian – and I know which I’ll be buying. We’ll have a Welshman at number one this Christmas,” they said.

But it is not all bad news for Rhydian - the 25-year-old opera singer is tipped to land his own record deal despite coming second.

It is not the first time voting for the ITV1 talent show has come under scrutiny.

A recent report by auditors Deloitte found “serious technical issues” with digital TV and text voting in previous series.

During the 2005 'X Factor' final, 13.9% of votes cast in this way arrived too late to be included, although it did not affect the outcome of the show.

Three episodes of the 2006 series were also affected, with between 4% and 7% of votes received too late.

And ITV has admitted overcharging 'X Factor' viewers by £200,000 (€280,519) in last year’s series, when 1.3 million digital TV votes were mistakenly charged at the wrong rate.