So, at last, voters have managed to boot Sanjaya off the Season 6 show of American Idol. And what a show it's been: full of controversy, surprise and now questions about the entire integrity and honesty of the show's producers and the voting system. Howard Stern set out to prove American Idol was rigged or could be, and now, after Sanajaya has suddenly been voted off at last, it's looking like Stern has proved his point: the results can be manipulated and easily.

First off, let's look at Sanjaya himself. There was indeed something endearing about him and actually, his voice isn't all that bad: it just needs a few more years to develop. After all, he is only 17. He has good pitch and quite a nice tone when he sings songs that work for him. In the long run, if this boy wants to sing for his supper, he's probably better suited to broadway. Or perhaps, with that killer smile, he'd be better off in commercials for toothpaste. But when it comes to 'showmanship" as a performer who could keep an audience riveted for song after song, no way did Sanjaya have it. No way! It takes years of performing to develop great showmanship and charisma even when you have it start with...and he doesn't.

Taylor Hicks had showmanship. Chris Daughtry was a showman. So is Rod Stewart, Shania Twain and Tina Turner and many more superstars who don't necessarily have the best voices but know how to keep an audience hanging on their every move and note. That most certainly isn't Sanjaya. So conclusion? The only thing keeping Sanjaya on this show must have been the Stern effect and/or Vote for the Worst.

But perhaps there's yet another reason i.e. American Idol execs themselves kept him there, not so much because he provided showmanship but because it was obvious from the time they picked the top 10 or 12 that the ladies had it all over the guys in talent, voices, and showmanship and that the show would indeed become boring and lose viewers if the winner was so predictable. Those top 3 girls aren't boring: they are fabulous singers and have showmanship. The guys that are left aren't fabulous singers but they have some showmanship. But if week after week those top 3 girls (Jordin, Melinda and Lakisha) consistently turned in solid performances while the guys kept feeding us mediocre and forgettable performances, we'd stop watching knowing we could tune in for just the last 3 weeks and miss nothing.

In short, American Idol producers and whoever else decides these things saw a huge need to keep Sanjaya in there so we had a reason to come back each week. They needed controversy to keep viewers watching the show. And let's not forget one thing: American Idol is about ratings and putting on a TV show people love to hate but can't stay away from. It's not about those individuals getting up there each week to play out their "idol dreams".

So now to the voting, the fine print in the contracts and the rest. For me, from word "go" the voting system has been ridiculous. You CANNOT choose the real winner when an ardent fan can vote 100 or 1000 times for their favourite. The only fair voting is one per person and it seems, that's impossible to set up and/or monitor. So the voting is never fair and has always been rigged, if not by the show then by the voters themselves who find electronic means to beat the system.

As for the fine print, it doesn't surprise me one iota that the producers have a rider in the show's contract that allows them to adjust, as it were, the voting results. Quite frankly, it's probably absolutely essential to the folks putting up all the money for this show, both before and after the winner is decided, to be able to manipulate results. Does John Q Public know the cost of turning an artist into a megastar? Let me tell you it's millions. Now who in their right mind would let a Sanjaya win? Who would be so stupid as to "let the public vote in" an American Idol who's a mediocre singer with minimal stage presence and showmanship? After the winner wins, they have to be able to sell tickets and CD's. Therefore, after the novelty of the show has worn off, the person who wins had better have more to offer than a nice set of teeth and a sweet smile.

So, in retrospect, rigged or not, I think it's probably imperative that American Idol producers and the money men behind it be able to over-ride the popular vote so they can invest in success rather than failure. I don't think, in any of the previous seasons, that the producers wouldn't have stepped in if they thought the winner couldn't sell tickets, let alone CD's. The judges manipulate the voting week after week with their comments. They know who should be in that final three and they do their best to make sure the final three are money-makers for them.

Or let's put this another way: if you had a million dollars to invest, would you sink it into anything not likely to give you the best returns? That's not good business sense. That's stupidity. And that's the reality of American Idol.

http://www.americanidol.com/contestants/season5/taylor_hicks/

Viga Boland is the webmaster of IDOL DREAMS and ENTERTAINERS ONTARIO and manages the career of international entertainer/impersonator, Victoria Boland

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Sanjaya Malakar - how did this name get into my world? I'm not a teenybopper (or whatever young fans are called today) and I've never even watched American Idol. Gasp! Did I really say that? Yes, I'm one of the probably three people in the world who have never watched American Idol. But there is Sanjaya, smack dab in the middle of my living room, singing (or what passes for singing in his mind) his little heart out - on a news clip on Countdown with Keith Olbermann on MSNBC.

Sanjaya is this year's William Hung. I speak with authority on William Hung too because I have also never seen him on American Idol! That doesn't mean that William Hung has not crept into my life too. But so has Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong and from way back when, Jimmy "Inka Dinka Doo" Durante (the old Shnozzola). Neither of these men could sing. They couldn't even carry a tune. But what they could do was perform. They put on a show. They entertained us. For whatever perverse reason (their musical talents notwithstanding) we liked them.

Louis Armstrong of course could play a mean trumpet and is regarded as one of the two greatest jazz musicians of all time, along with Charlie "Bird" Parker, and Jimmy Durante played the piano and was a comedian. They had definite, tangible talents but you'd have to have a tin ear to think that they could sing.

They sure could put on one hell of a show and make us smile and laugh and just plain enjoy ourselves while they were entertaining us.

Poor Sanjaya, he entertains a lot of people but in the wrong way. Instead of laughing with him, thousands are laughing at him. They say he can't sing. Ok, from what I've heard of him on the news clips that might be a fair assessment.

But that dazzling smile, the gorgeous good looks and glorious mane of hair is enough to make this mature woman smile! I remember back in the day when another "singer" made it big. This singer was not on American Idol of course, because it didn't exist then, but was on an equally entertaining show that started it all - American Bandstand with Dick Clark. Before Dick Clark the show was hosted by a local Philly disk jockey by the name of Bob Horne, but that's another entertaining story in and of itself.

The singer to whom I refer is none other than the fabulous Fabian. Could Fabian sing? Most definitely not with a capital N! He couldn't carry a tune out of the proverbial bag. But what he did have is exactly what Sanjaya has today - good looks, gorgeous smile, confidence and "it."

Just what "it" is, I can't say. All I know is that Sanjaya entertained me with his unabashed enthusiasm (from what I've seen on the TV news). Perhaps it's because he reminds me a good deal of my youngest son who also had the huge dark brown eyes and long brown hair and the unbridled enthusiasm.

It's come to my attention (after Googling Sanjaya) that a lot of people want him voted off of American Idol. I suspect that no matter what happens, whether he's voted off or goes on to win the contest (doubtful but what do I know? I don't watch the show) he will have a successful career ahead of him. Perhaps not as a singer but maybe as an actor (again, remember Fabian? Okay, not a good example, Fabian couldn't act either!) or maybe as a male model.

To everyone who wants him voted off the show because he can't sing and they claim it's not fair to other good singers, I say lighten up. From what I've read and heard about American Idol, I would ask, do you really think it's a legitimate, honest show? It sounds more like a circus to me and in the end the most worthy singers will most likely prevail. So let's allow the Sanjaya's and William Hung's of the world to entertain us too in their own inimitable style.

Who knows, perhaps Sanjaya will now be instrumental in making me watch American Idol. Nah. I don't think so. As cute as he is, a three minute snippet of him on Countdown with Keith Olbermann is enough for me. Speaking of cute and adorable, Keith Olbermann wins hands down. I even heard him say that he can sing. Now if he goes on American Idol I'll definitely be watching.

Sheryl Letzgus McGinnis is the author of the book "I Am Your Disease (The Many Faces of Addiction)" published by Outskirts Press. You can read about, and purchase the book at http://www.iamyourdisease.com

I am a retired medical transcriptionist and radio DJ who also did voiceovers for TV. Married, with one living son, having lost my youngest son Scott, who was a paramedic and an RN to the disease of addiction. Happily married for 40 years to Jack, 8th grade science teacher. My oldest son Dale is soon to be a graduate student in Ecology and Environmental Biology.

We live in Palm Bay, Florida. I am originally from Brisbane, Queensland, Australia and am a citizen of both Australia and the US. We are owned by one dog and two cats!

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Sheryl Letzgus McGinnis - EzineArticles Expert Author

In 2004, Votefortheworst.com emerged to support voting for the entertaining contestants who the producers would hate to see win on American Idol. Why does Votefortheworst.com do it? During the first auditions, the producers of Idol only let particular people through. Many good people are turned away and many bad contestants are kept around to see Simon, Paula, and Randy so that America will be entertained.

Now why do the producers do this? It's simple: American Idol is not about singing at all; it's about making good reality TV and enjoying the cheesy, guilty pleasure of watching bad singing. We agree that a fish out of water is entertaining, and we want to acknowledge this fact by encouraging people to make an even funnier show by helping the amusing contenders stick around. VFTW sees keeping these contestants around as a golden chance to make a better live show.

The American Idol show starts out every year encouraging us to point and laugh at all of the bad singers who audition. Votefortheworst.com want this hysterically bad entertainment to continue into the finals, so we choose the competitor that we feel offers the most entertaining train wreck performances and we start voting for them. We don't essentially vote for the worst technical singer; we take into account many factors like if they have crazy personalities, how well they dance and move around the stage, if they have an attitude, if they irritate the general public or judges, etc. The bottom line is that they have to be entertaining and they have to go against what AI (American Idol) wants to produce in a winner. So we don't just vote for the worst singer, we vote for the most entertaining contestant using our own criteria.

American Idol producers don't like this though, because they've already spent time "pimping" the contestant that they want to win. Because they don't like the site, Fox has called it "hateful" and "mean spirited". Doesn't it seem a tad hypocritical to say that when the show has weeks devoted to making fun of bad auditions? The producers also profited from a "Worst of American Idol" DVD set. How can the producers let Simon mock some of the contestants but then let us be called "vicious" when a campaign exists to help those very contestants? We don't hate the people we vote for, we actually love them!

Some people and TV shows claim that Votefortheworst.com has helped Sanjaya Malakar, one of the American idols contestants, to stay in the American Idol competition.

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