X Factor votes tumble

The X Factor: understood to be under ITV scrutiny following phone voting scandals. Photograph: ITV

ITV1's reality talent show The X Factor has been hit by the fallout from the Deloitte report, with around 50% fewer eviction votes being cast at times during this series.

MediaGuardian.co.uk has learned that following the premium-rate phone scandals, changes to the way viewers can vote - combined with negative publicity - have dented voting levels.

In addition, sources claimed that as rumours continue to circulate about problems with other shows, ITV is scrutinising The X Factor and may consider launching a new inquiry or making more details of the Deloitte report's findings available.

Last month the ITV director of television, Simon Shaps, said voting levels were "still pretty healthy" for The X Factor and current hit I'm a Celebrity, Get Me Out of Here!, despite the Deloitte report into ITV's use of premium-rate lines over two years, which has sparked an Ofcom inquiry and will be examined by the Serious Fraud Office.

Although ratings for The X Factor are up compared with last year, insiders claimed that at some points during this series voting has fallen by around half.

Ratings for The X Factor, overall year on year, are up from 7.5 million viewers and a 35.6% share in 2006 to 8 million and 37.1% share for the current series so far.

One source said: "We've been told that voting for The X Factor has been down around 50% on last year."

In a bid to restore viewers' trust, ITV has removed text and red button voting from shows such as The X Factor.

This, combined with a decline in the public's trust in participation programmes following the premium-rate phone-in scandals, is understood to have led to the fall.

It suggests that while the popularity of the programmes and key presenters, such as Antony McPartlin, Declan Donnelly and Simon Cowell, have not been damaged, viewers' willingness to pay to take part in eviction votes has been dented.

ITV has refused to publish the full Deloitte report into its participation TV problems.

The issue has been further clouded after its investigators, Deloitte, had to rely on producers coming forward to admit their misdemeanours.

However, the sheer scale of the problems they did uncover on top shows such as Ant and Dec's Saturday Night Takeaway suggest that more details will continue to leak out for some time yet.

ITV has been hoping to draw a line under the issue with payouts of £7.8m to callers who were deceived.

But with Ofcom's judgment to come and questions remaining about which ITV executives were given bonuses linked to telephony revenue, the issue is likely to rumble on for some time.

An ITV spokesman said: "As we said when we launched the Deloitte report, we're looking into a number of issues raised by it but we're not going to speculate on individual shows."

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source:http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2007/nov/28/tvfakery.itv?gusrc=rss&feed=media