Bosses on Strictly Come Dancing are on the hunt for an audience mole who is leaking the results of the exit show to a superfan when then publishes it on a website. They are concerned that every week, the two celebrities in the dance-off, and then the one who is sent home is being revealed.
Fans were not happy after the outcome of the third elimination of the series was leaked. Hours after the live show aired on Saturday, October 16 the week four dance-off results were posted online. Read more about that here.
MailOnline has reported that the names are being passed on to superfan Dave Thorp, who discloses them on his website – and tweets the link to his 55,000 followers around 11.30pm on Saturdays.
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The Sunday night exit show is not live, and is actually recorded on Saturday night after the voting polls are closed. This week say Kym Marsh and Matt Goss in the final, with the judges voting for the Bros singer to go. There were tears as the announcement was made.
The bottom two are decided by a combination of the judges' scores and viewers' votes. Couples with the fewest overall votes perform again in the dance-off.
A Strictly source told The Mail on Sunday: "For years, the majority of the audience didn’t twig that the Sunday show was pre-recorded, but recently the results have been leaked, spoiling the suspense. Those running the show want to find out who is leaking – and fast. What’s really baffling them is that it must be the same person each week."
People in the audience at Elstree Studios have their phones taken away during filming, and are escorted when they need to use the toilet. Tickets are given to friends and families of those taking part, and to members of the public drawn in a ballot.
There are not calls for the show to be broadcast live on Sunday night, but that is the only day the professionals and the dancers have a day off during the week.
The change had been made to not make Sunday live because presenter Bruce Forsyth, who was in his 80s, was struggling to host two live shows over a weekend.
In a statement, Dave Thorp urged the BBC to return to a live Sunday show. He said: "I’m just a fan who finds it ludicrous that when information can be transmitted in the blink of an eye, the BBC would still think it a good idea to pre-record the results show of their flagship reality series and broadcast it a whole day later.
"If they don’t want the result to leak, there’s something very simple they can do – broadcast the results show live."
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