"American Idol:" Kris Allen(gate)?
Yup, we wanted a recount. We demanded a recount.
And now I'm wondering: Will we ever get a recount?
On the jump, check out this piece by the Arkansas Post-Democrat, which wrote up some sort of party whereby AT&T provided "about 50 display units and representatives to teach multiple 'power texting.' (The NYT picked up this week-old story last night,which suddenly made it "real news," I suppose.) AT&T also made about 30 phones available in a 'texting zone' at a watch party at the Peabody Little Rock hotel, where Megan Lynch and friend Rainey Gibson, both 22, watched Allen perform his first song of the night..."
My question: Why did AT&T do this? Is it because AT&T gets $$'s everytime someone texts a message via its service?
I wonder what the answer is.
And how many of these parties did AT&T help/supply?
(I wonder what the answer is...)
And why is AT&T the only provider that lets you text in "American Idol" votes?
(I wonder what the answer is...)
And finally, did 19 Entertainment, and "Idol" and Fox know about these parties, or other organized efforts, and know that a vast amount of texting would certainly create a curious end result? And because AT&T is a major sponsor, did they turn a blind eye?
Altogether now: We wonder what the answers are...
1) -Click here for photos of all of Adam Lambert's "American Idol" outfits this season
-Click here for photos of all of Kris Allen's "American Idol" outfits this season
2) Photos of Adam, Kris and Danny with their hometown fans | "American Idol" trading cards
3) Inside the after-party for the 13 "American Idol" finalists
Throngs of Kris Allen fans cheer, vote for Idol finalist Conway singer battles Californian in finale
BYLINE: BY JENNIFER CHRISTMAN AND LAURA STEVENS ARKANSAS DEMOCRAT-GAZETTE
SECTION: FRONT SECTION
LENGTH: 986 words
CONWAY - Cheerleaders. Nachos. Fandom.
All the features and fervor of football filled the University of Central Arkansas' Estes Stadium on Tuesday night. But the sport on view was singing.
A crowd of about 2,000 signwaving, cheering, texting supporters of Conway's Kris Allen filled up the better part of the home side of the UCA Bears' stadium for the pop-culture finals of the Fox network's eighth season of American Idol, playing on the scoreboard's big screen. Allen, a fresh-faced, 23-year-old worship leader at Conway's New Life Church, faced off against Adam Lambert, a 27-year-old glam rocker and theater actor from San Diego at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles.
At the end of Tuesday's final performance, the show's four judges favored Lambert after he wowed them with the third song of the evening, a difficult ballad co-written by judge Kara DioGuardi.
Allen had trouble with the song's upper-register requirements, according to The Associated Press.
But the judges don't choose the winner. That decision is left to the viewers, who had four hours after the end of Tuesday's show to phone in or text their favorite.
And that's just fine with 36-year-old Shannon Purvis of Little Rock, who was in the Conway watch party crowd.
"I feel he's really the American Idol, and he's represented Arkansas very well," she said, showing off her homemade stenciled signs: "Kris Allen Has Brought Class Back" and "How Sweet It Is To Have Kris Allen 4 Arkansas' American Idol", a nod to the singer's take on James Taylor.
Purvis knew someone else showing support for Allen from home.
"My grandma is 90, and she's calling," Purvis said. "She has the T-shirt. Everything. It's a whole family thing." It was also close to a family thing for Jonathan Lea, who was present to coach the young participants of Central Arkansas Cheer that Allen's brother, Daniel, also coaches. Lea, who attended school with the brothers and cheered with Daniel at UCA, said he remembers last year when the two Allens were auditioning for American Idol.
"We were like, `Man you're not going to make it,'" Lea said. "And now here we are, Kris is in the final two. A year ago he was playing in the quad with no one paying attention to him, and now he's the most famous guy in Conway." Kris Allen will be the most famous man in entertainment - at least today - if he is declared the winner during the show's two-hour finale that begins at 7 p.m.
During Tuesday's broadcast, the audience applauded whenever Allen appeared, sang and was praised by the show's judges. The crowd reserved the loudest hooting for judge Simon Cowell, Allen's most vocal critic during the season, when Cowell told him that, despite earlier doubts, "You deserve to be standing on this stage." Before last week's shows, Cowell told Fox News, "Kris is a nice guy, but he's not a good enough singer to compete with Adam." Yet, Cowell admitted after last week's show that Allen's "brilliant" take on Kanye West's "Heartless" changed his mind.
In an interview Monday outside the Nokia Theatre, Allen and Lambert said they hope viewers will base their votes for the next Idol on performance alone.
"For me, I hope that having the Christian vote doesn't help with anything," said Allen. "I hope it has to do with your talent and the performance that you give and the package that you have. It's not about religion and all that kind of stuff." Lambert said he does not think the contest "has anything to do with your religious background, what color you are, your gender. It doesn't have anything to do with that. It's about music. That's really important to keep in mind." Rick Bezet - Allen's pastor from Conway's New Life Church - is in Los Angeles for the twonight finale. He said Tuesday afternoon that Allen had been rehearsing a lot and was excited to perform.
"I'm just glad to see him getting more confident," Bezet said before the show. "He's paced himself with his vocals well, and he's more confident today." Allen's family attends New Life as well, he said.
"It's gotten really, really exciting for the whole church." In Conway after Tuesday's performances, fans at the Estes Stadium watch party took out wireless phones and started making calls and firing off text messages - some voting on their own devices and others on phones borrowed from AT&T, which supplied about 50 display units and representatives to teach multiple "power texting." AT&T also made about 30 phones available in a "texting zone" at a watch party at the Peabody Little Rock hotel, where Megan Lynch and friend Rainey Gibson, both 22, watched Allen perform his first song of the night, Bill Withers' "Ain't No Sunshine." "I loved it," Lynch said. "One of my favorite things about Kris is that he plays his own instruments. That just shows how talented he is." Gibson, who said she would be voting nonstop, said Allen did an excellent job.
A table of outlets and power cords was available at Estes Stadium for those whose batteries ran out of juice. One of them was UCA student Bill Coghlan, who admitted he didn't actually watch the show, but was voting because "My friend told me to." Nobody had to urge UCA student Brittany Gilbert to dial in votes.
"I start five minutes before the show ends, and I don't stop," she said, eyes fixed to her phone with fingers perpetually poking buttons. "Never. Not at all. Not to go to the bathroom." She said she was leaving to get access to three more phones during the four-hour voting bloc. Others vowed to remain at the stadium and keep voting until the midnight event closed.
The event was the fifth watch party organized by the Kris Allen Kick Awesome Task Force, said organizer Sonja Keith.
The task force plans another watch party tonight at Conway's Simon Park. Another party also is planned for Peabody as well as other sites.
Information for this article was contributed by Derrik J. Lang and Erin Carlson of The Associated Press.
This article was published 05/20/2009
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Comments (10)
JUSTICE FOR ADAM: We all know Adam should have won this, as much as he doesn't seem to care because he is so humble. How can we draw Idol's attention to this injustice! A T and T should be impartial, and not interfere in voting. How disgusting! There's no way Kris deserved this win with all the cheating that was going on.
American Idol: Address this and stop the cheating!
Pathetic how the media still wants an Adam Lambert victory. Heck, let's do the competition over and have Danny win this time.
It happened in Season 5 with Kellie, Elliott and Taylor. Idol has always known. For all we know, some AT&T stores did it for Adam. Does not matter that a few employees gave away a few phones. Could not have made that much of a difference especially since Adam Lambert message boards were filled with instructions to go buy extra go phones and had instructions on ... you guessed it.... how to do the sending 10 texts at a time thing. And before Adam fans jump and say but we bought those some were given to kris fans for free. That is your fault. It isn't Kris's fault that 2 of his local stores wanted to do this. Maybe San Diego should have cared enough to give out some phones. So the diehard internet fans and the judges and media loved Adam. Well I would say that makes up about 5-10% of Idol viewers all over the country.A good portion of the rest of the country was voting for Kris. Adam was bottom 2 once. Kris never was. Bottom 3 yes but not bottom 2.I cannot believe the actual press has started running stories based on crazy fan conspiracy theories. Adam has acted with the utmost dignity. Too bad I can't say the same for his fans. Why did Kris win? Hmmmm... To Make You Feel My Love,Ain't No Sunshine,She Works Hard for the Money, Falling Slowly and Heartless. He had more musical appeal to the vast portion of the country.What's next? I suppose there was a suspicious voter on the grassy knoll?
It happened in Season 5 with Kellie, Elliott and Taylor. Idol has always known. For all we know, some AT&T stores did it for Adam. Does not matter that a few employees gave away a few phones. Could not have made that much of a difference especially since Adam Lambert message boards were filled with instructions to go buy extra go phones and had instructions on ... you guessed it.... how to do the sending 10 texts at a time thing. And before Adam fans jump and say but we bought those some were given to kris fans for free. That is your fault. It isn't Kris's fault that 2 of his local stores wanted to do this. Maybe San Diego should have cared enough to give out some phones. So the diehard internet fans and the judges and media loved Adam. Well I would say that makes up about 5-10% of Idol viewers all over the country.A good portion of the rest of the country was voting for Kris. Adam was bottom 2 once. Kris never was. Bottom 3 yes but not bottom 2.I cannot believe the actual press has started running stories based on crazy fan conspiracy theories. Adam has acted with the utmost dignity. Too bad I can't say the same for his fans. Why did Kris win? Hmmmm... To Make You Feel My Love,Ain't No Sunshine,She Works Hard for the Money, Falling Slowly and Heartless. He had more musical appeal to the vast portion of the country.What's next? I suppose there was a suspicious voter on the grassy knoll?
The only injustice I can find is that I couldn't text because I did not have At&T as a provider. If American Idol is going to allow text votes, All users should have had the same opportunity to do so. I tried for 3 hours as well as 4 others I know to vote via landline and cell phones, and not until the last hour were we able to get calls through. All those thousand or so votes never counted. I don't think it's a conspiracy theory, I just think it was an injustice done to all of us who weren't able to text, regardless if it was for Adam or Kris.
I like them both, I did in all honesty vote for Adam, but I am not disappointed in the outcome...You don't have to have the title to be an Idol. Adam will do great in his own right, maybe it's best he didn't win. I wish Kris great success as well. Those two were the most classy of all the finalist I've seen in the past and you can tell that they genuinely cared for one another.
To make it fair, If you can't text from other providers, then no one should be able to text. I'd of gladly paid the price to text, but wasn't offered that opportunity, that's the unfairness of it all.
What's with the press making this kind of reports about AT&T's alleged cheating in favor of Kris Allen? How would AT&T know that the recipient of the free phones (if indeed they gave out several) will vote for Kris and not Adam? And why didn't Adam's fans organize parties and events to make sure Adam wins? Pathetic losers. I loved both Adam and Kris and couldn't care less who won but now all my support goes to Kris Allen! I'm sure that after all these false accusations against his (Kris) fans, they're going to strike back by making sure that he gets a platinum record/album. I'm definitely buying his album when it comes out. Not only is Kris a real artist, he's also a good example of someone with great humility and patience.
Actually it is very significant if the outcome is rigged regardless of who won. This is not something "we should just get over". It is fraud of the highest degree.
I really think the American Public has a right to know.
So just because YOUR favorite came in second, you want a recount? (Man....sore losers are the worst!)
Adam was GREAT, but so was Kris and Danny and Alison! So....get over it and move on!
(ps Kiss still sucks! Sorry, Adam, but...they do.)
Everyone who is upset should get a life. Until they limit the voting to one per person, it's all a cheat. There's no way to tell who really won, and just because the winner wasn't the one you wanted, means, the winner wasn't the one you wanted.
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