An inevitable march to the final two?

[GoRedBirds]

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Can this idea be reconciled with the weekly increases in the total number of votes?

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Don't they leave the lines open longer/have more #'s for each contestant? More people get through for a longer time frame. Plus, I bet fans get a bit more rabid toward the finals.

[StellarWind]

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Who is affected most by a poor performance and who is affected the least? Assume that the general public assumes everyone to be equally bad.

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If everyone is equally bad then most people will make excuses for their favorites and damn the rest. Been there, done that, it's a very human reaction. No matter how bad everyone else has done, it's very hard to make a new fan with a bad performance. The net result is that whoever was last the previous week will fail to make up ground and thereby lose.

[StellarWind]

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Don't they leave the lines open longer/have more #'s for each contestant? More people get through for a longer time frame. Plus, I bet fans get a bit more rabid toward the finals.

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Idol Gives Back was obviously abnormal. But up until then it had been two hours and one line per contestant every week. Yet the vote total has been continually increasing throughout the Finals despite millions of votes being cast for losing contestants.

[4Tay]

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[1]Not all voters switch to another singer, of course - some just stop voting.

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i think it has been shown that most do stop voting.

i know this is anctedotal, but everyone i know that votes, stops completely when their horse is gone.

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I think this depends on whether their second favorite is still there. If they don't like anyone that's left, then they'd stop voting.

I'm a Melinda fan, if she's gone, I'd be more likely to vote for Blake than Lakisha because he's my next favorite. Contrary to OP's theory, I'm not more likely to vote for Lakisha just because she fits more of Melinda's genre or has similar characteristics.

[TheVegan]

I have bet heavy on Idol every season and ironically I have never voted even once.

Anyway, as I have said before I don't think the average public just votes for the same contestant every week. I think they vote for the contestant that blows them away. I also don't think they stop watching if their favorite is voted off. I think in general the only ones who stop watching when their favorite is voted off are gamblers. Of course I need to believe all this because if I believed otherwise then Lakisha wouldn't stand a chance.

[thing85]

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Who is affected most by a poor performance and who is affected the least? Assume that the general public assumes everyone to be equally bad.

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If everyone is equally bad then most people will make excuses for their favorites and damn the rest. Been there, done that, it's a very human reaction. No matter how bad everyone else has done, it's very hard to make a new fan with a bad performance. The net result is that whoever was last the previous week will fail to make up ground and thereby lose.

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Seems logical. But consider this scenario, where like I said, all contestants are equally "bad." Think of the following as a summary of judges' responses.

Jordin: (Remember, she was terrible last week) "It was definitely better than last week, but still not great. Good to see you bounce back though."

Lakisha: "This wasn't nearly as good as last week and I didn't like it too much. It wasn't your worst, however."

Blake: "Glad to see that you're sticking with your originality, but this performance was a mess. I think you're unique enough to be safe, however."

Melinda: "Hate to say it, but this was by far your worst performance yet. Hopefully your fans will give you a chance to bring back the old Melinda next week."


What I'm trying to illustrate here is that, while all the performers in this hypothetical situation are equally "bad," they still remain in different relative positions because of their prior successes and failures. In other words, Jordin and Melinda could be equally bad, but because Jordin was so bad last week and Melinda has been so good, Melinda could be in danger as she will seem to be someone who hit a plateau and then started declining. Jordin, on the other hand, will seem to be improving again.

Not saying this would ever be the case...I'm just trying to generate some alternate scenarios.

[StellarWind]

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Blake likely picked up a sizable amount of votes from the Chris R. block; given that he was quite possibly already ahead of Jordin (if not, he was almost certainly close), I think this gives him a significant advantage over her.

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Last week was almost a perfect storm in this regard. Blake has his best week ever by a large margin while Jordin has her worst week ever by another large margin.

The odds are that isn't going to happen again. Jordin will do better tonight and Blake will lose the Superman cape. Then Jordin's long-term voter supremacy over Blake will probably reassert itself.

One thing that I do wonder about is "Pros" vs "Joes". Having to prepare two songs for tonight would seem to be a big advantage for the professionals (Blake and Melinda) over inexperienced Jordin and LaKisha. I guess we will see how that goes.

[thing85]

Good point re: "Pros" vs "Joes." Hadn't thought about that.

[StellarWind]

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I have bet heavy on Idol every season and ironically I have never voted even once.

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That's a mistake. Actually voting has taught me a lot about the psychology of voting.

[thing85]

I'm guilty of that too. Care to elaborate on what you mean by it teaching you the "psychology of voting?" I'm actually curious about this.