MNET and Idols are going for the “World First” vibe, with regards to the incredibly embarrassing situation they are now in, having completely muffed the final vote counting exercise – something they hired the constantly troubled and shrouded in scandal Alexander Forbes company to do for them.

“World first” – as in they’ve now got two winners. But, in actual fact, it’s a World First in terms of monumental botch they have made.

This was their press release:

In a world first in the history of Idols, South Africa has two. Due to the unusual circumstances surrounding the SMS voting process during the final show on Sunday, 03 May.

M-Net and FremantleMedia, the format owners, have agreed that both Sasha Lee Davids and Jason Hartman are declared winners.

Says Patricia Scholtemeyer, CEO of M-Net: “M-Net’s Idols Season V was an
unprecedented success and the public participation throughout the season was phenomenal. For the first time, the voting public had 100% say in the outcome of the competition to decide the winner. Therefore, every vote counted and it was imperative that the votes were counted accurately.

“When M-Net realised that not all the SMS votes cast before the cut-off time at 18:05 had been received and accounted for, we immediately began corrective action to understand fully the true situation. Following the recount, It turned out that there were 1,3 million votes for Jason and 1,1 million votes for Sasha Lee, which is evidence of the immense public following that both our Idols winners have garnered during the course of the competition.”

The final week’s voting period ran from Monday, 27 April at 19:30 until Sunday, 03 May till 18:05 during the final live show. When the votes had been verified after the cut-off time on Sunday evening, Sasha Lee was the winner. However, when the regular post-show internal analysis was conducted the following morning, it became apparent that an unusual amount of SMS votes that had been sent in before the 18:05 cut-off time, had not been received and thus included in this result.

M-Net management took action and called in KPMG to independently conduct a recount and verify the actual results. As a result of this process, it has emerged that Jason did in fact receive more votes than Sasha Lee.

“This competition is driven by the public’s vote. While we acknowledge that this was not a scenario that we had expected or wanted, we are delighted with the outcome as both Jason and Sasha Lee are true Idols. We will be following their careers closely and with great interest,” concludes Scholtemeyer.

Amazing how they had to call in KPMG (as we recommended earlier) to check on Alexander Forbes – the company they made such a scene about live on screen, with regards to the professionalism surrounding the counting process and systems.

Today, in an equally panic-stricken move, Alexander Forbes sent out the following internal memo:

Re: Idols

There has been a lot of coverage in the media regarding the Idols final held on Sunday night.

This note is to explain that Alexander Forbes’ role on the night of any Idols Results show is to perform two basic functions:

To ensure that the number of votes received by the close of voting are those used to determine the result;

To ensure and verify that based on the votes received, the correct person is eliminated from the show, or declared the winner.

On 3 May 2009 both these functions were performed by Alexander Forbes correctly. However it has come to light that there were a significant number of votes received after the 18h05 cut off time and this is being investigated by M-Net, who have appointed KPMG as independent auditors. KPMG have been appointed to audit MNET’s entire process as this is service that Alexander Forbes does not provide. Please note that KPMG are not auditing our involvement or processes.

In their review KPMG found that Alexander Forbes acted properly and came to the same conclusion as us regarding the winner with the information available to us based on the votes received at the official close at 18h05 on Sunday.

M-Net are holding a press conference at 13h00 today (Friday) where they will announce their findings regarding the status of the winner which may have changed based on the additional votes received after the 18h05 cut off on Sunday night which were included in their re-count. Alexander Forbes will be represented at the briefing and will answer ant questions relating to our involvement to ensure there is no question we have acted improperly.

Tim Morgan

Head: Strategy and Communication

Blah blah blah.

Ja, Tim. Whatever.

This is the biggest embarrassment in South African television history.

Case closed.