Winston Sill/Freelance Photographer
(Front from left) Rodney Davis, CEO of Cable and Wireless Jamaica, presents a copy of the winner's cheque to Koyla Robinson, choir director at Oberlin High School, lead singer, Jermaine Blake, and his younger brother, Jerome, at the finals of the All Together Sing 2006, at TVJ's studio, recently. Host, Dahlia Harris (second left), looks on.

Krista Henry, Staff Reporter

Does Jamaica always make the right decision in talent contests that depend on the public vote?

Digicel's Rising Stars, MiPhone's Dancin' Dynamites and the recent All Together Sing trod similar assessment paths, with judges doing eliminations and giving their professional opinions, while the public got the final say by way of thousands of dollars worth of phone calls, fervent texting, and tears of joy later.

However, some voters may be swayed by a pretty smile, cute face, school loyalty or a blinging outfit. And, sometimes voters develop an affinity to certain contestants, talent or no talent.

Fair means

However, according to the producers of the shows, the public vote is a fair means of choosing the best. Micheal Gonzales, series producer for All Together Sing, says "The fact of the matter is that where contestants scored high by judges they were scored high by the voting as well, therefore the voting is an interactive environment. At no time was the voting skewed. Almost each week we had a different choir being number one. The people are saying you're as good as your last performance. It wasn't really die-hard votes."

Gonzales said there are pros and cons to using the public vote, one advantage being the interaction with the public, while a drawback is that the public is not aware of the intricacies of judging. Still, he maintains that the Jamaican public can identify talent and has chosen the consistent choir.

Public interest, interaction

While Rising Stars and All Together Sing rely solely on the public after the initial eleminations, Dancin' Dynamites utilises the scores of the judges as well. Producer and presenter of Dancin' Dynamites, Jennifer 'Jenny Jenny' Small, said, "We do not just do public voting, but the judges scores are added to the weekly votes. If you get 20,000 votes for this one, you add votes from the judges. Sometimes the votes are very close. We wanted to make sure you have public interest and interaction. The money from the votes goes towards prizes for contestants and voters."

The contestants have a lot at stake, hence the 'campaigning'. In season two of Rising Stars, Noddy Virtue held 'Noddy Wednesdays' to get the public interested, and distributed phone cards. Sharon Schroeter, series producer of Rising Stars, acknowledges that campaigning occurs, but says there is nothing the organisers can do about it.

"The Jamaican public makes or breaks you. That's it. Look at Cavan, who was voted out. Another contestant couldn't partake and judges had to make a consensus and they brought him back. It's interesting. That was one of our most memorable moments," she said.

Jenny Jenny also maintains that the public is a good judge. "I have every confidence in Jamaicans. If they think you can't sing or dance, then they would tell you. The majority of Jamaicans are talented; so far they have not failed. They are guided by the judges; the judges tell you what they want. If the judges are impressed, that group gets good votes for the week," she said.

However, she admits that sometimes the wrong contestant gets booted off. "Yeah, voting kicked off people who shouldn't have come out early. Sometimes community support, rich costumes, whatever drives interest that week. Everybody can get persons to go and buy credit," she said.

The extreme

That is what some voters do to the extreme, Latoyarecalled an incident where she overheard a female voter saying she had spent over $2,000 worth of credit on this year's Rising Stars contestant, Suzanne Perkins.

"The lady said she wanted to see Suzanne win so she could use the money to go to school. She's (Suzanne) sweet looking and I can bet that's one of the reasons why she reached so far."

According to another voter, Stacy, "I don't think the process of calling in and voting is particularly fair. The reason I say this is that during Rising Stars, just as an experiment I called in to vote and with speed dialling and three hours of trying to cast a vote I was never able to get through. Take that times thousands, the fact is a lot of votes can't get through."