 
ALL three couples in Strictly Come Dancing will be in next week’s final—after reality TV’s biggest cock-up.
Viewers were left in confusion as the BBC1 show’s hosts Bruce Forsyth and Tess Daly offered NO explanation after the dance-off was axed last night.
All yesterday’s millions of votes will be carried over to next week’s final—when Tom Chambers, Rachel Stevens and Lisa Snowdon and their pro dance partners will all compete in the final.
But the News of The World can reveal the full inside story of the fiasco—which is a severe embarrassment to the BBC.
It happened after Rachel and partner Vincent Simone and Lisa with Brendan Cole wowed judges with their tangos to tie in first place with the judges’ votes. Tom and partner Camiller Dalllerup were bottom.
An insider said: “Because of the way the internal voting system of combining judges’ and viewer votes works, it meant the two girl celebs each had THREE points and Tom had ONE.
“But it meant that even if Tom received the most viewer votes, he could only have got FOUR points. If either Rachel or Lisa received the least viewer votes, they would have got one point, making their total four points too—the same as Tom.
“So there was NO WAY for Tom to escape the dance off, and the viewers that voted for him would have wasted their money.”
With each vote costing a minimum of 15p, BBC chiefs faced a huge scandal if they had not abandoned the eviction as potentially, millions could have wasted their cash trying to keep Tom in.
BBC chiefs were left red-faced last night because they failed to give viewers ANY explanation for the fiasco in the second of last night’s two shows. They later released a statement to the News of the World.
It said: “The vote opened just before the first programme went off air. So we made a decision that the fairest option to all of our dancers was that all the votes cast will stand and be carried through to next week’s final.”
The BBC insider added: “It’s GCSE maths for heaven’s sake – I can’t believe that Strictly hadn’t thought this through.
“This is the biggest show on the BBC on its second biggest night of the year and the whole thing has gone horribly wrong.
“Brucie, Tess and the judges are absolutely furious. They can’t believe that such an idiotic mistake has been made. They have all been made to look like complete laughing stocks.
“What made matters far, far worse is that viewers were kept in the dark.”
The BBC were alerted to the scandal by the News of the World after we were tipped off about the mix-up during the first show. Producers then realised the error.
An emergency meeting was called – and it was decided they had no choice but to abandon the dance off. When viewers tuned into the second show, they were immediately told that phone lines had been frozen.
An estimated audience of 11 million viewers tuned into the 9pm results show and watched as the fiasco unfolded.
But it was not till the very end of the show that the contestants discovered that none of them would be evicted and would go through to next week’s final. They all looked stunned and bewildered.
BBC chiefs are now investigating how they misled viewers so badly.
The Strictly judges quickly realised the error and were involved in a huge bust-up behind the scenes as producers were alerted to the fiasco.
But the catastrophe could all have been easily avoided. Our insider explained: “If they had just awarded both Rachel and Lisa two points, instead of three, this would never have happened.”
Angry fans posted complaints on the show’s message board. One wrote: “’They really should have told the public that their vote for Tom wouldn’t count. Simple maths.”
Source: News of the World