There’s a lot to what you say. I’m not firmly convinced of my own assumption here but happy to explore through the power of debate. From the trends I’ve seen I think there is a correlation between average scores and week of exit. I’m drawing from this that public voting trends along with judges’ scoring or at least is only rarely strongly and persistently at odds with it.
I think it might be safe to say that given two celebrities of equal popularity the one with the most dancing talent is likely to pick up a few extra votes. I know to my cost how important a few votes here or there can be.
I think there are two elements to a celebrity’s popularity as it translates into Strictly votes. There is the initial popularity and then developing dance popularity.
I’m going to treat initial popularity as static and lump both the public’s reaction to actual dancing talent and any additional insight into character the public see brought out by The Dance as developing. Just so I can get my head round it. You PhD’s feel free to think in 3D.
Put it another way, initial popularity can be damaged or enhanced by floor performance and the narrative arc of the JuurNAY of the celeb.
(There is also a third factor which is propensity of the demographic who like a particular celebrity to turn out for them. I don’t think people who remembered Johnny Ball were that likely to turn out for him. I suspect Denise’s fan base might not be a high turn out demographic either.)
So, people like soap actors or well liked national treasures will tend to do well. But every week the folk see more and more character in both senses and they also, I suggest, begin to base their voting more on a fair assessment of merit. I’d hold Chris Hollins up as an example of this. Middling celebrity before SCD. Did very well, and surprisingly so with his Charlston (Ola’s Charleston really) and that, I think, gave him the developing popularity to win through.
So what I think is going on is that celebrities (and pro-dancers) arrive with an endowment of popularity. This is going to be a function of all the things you mention. To this is added (or subtracted) a change in popularity. I think this is influenced in part by the actual dancing abilty. (I hold myself up as an example. Denise is my favourite celebrity this year regardless of whether she is any good. However, if she were in danger I would turn out to save her because if someone who tops the scoring most weeks doesn’t make it to the final that is wrong. I’m struggling to think of many people I would vote to keep in even if they were really poor.)
I definitely concur that doing badly in the judges’ scoring is likely to motivate voters to turn out. I think this might be a termporary phenomenon. One bad week gets rescued by popular support. Four in a row less so.
But again John Sergeant. (But I could suggest that he is a special case of character – inter alia – being revealed through The Dance.)
Difficult to draw any conclusions with out the voting dating. I’m seriously considering an FOI request to the BBC.
no subject
I think it might be safe to say that given two celebrities of equal popularity the one with the most dancing talent is likely to pick up a few extra votes. I know to my cost how important a few votes here or there can be.
I think there are two elements to a celebrity’s popularity as it translates into Strictly votes. There is the initial popularity and then developing dance popularity.
I’m going to treat initial popularity as static and lump both the public’s reaction to actual dancing talent and any additional insight into character the public see brought out by The Dance as developing. Just so I can get my head round it. You PhD’s feel free to think in 3D.
Put it another way, initial popularity can be damaged or enhanced by floor performance and the narrative arc of the JuurNAY of the celeb.
(There is also a third factor which is propensity of the demographic who like a particular celebrity to turn out for them. I don’t think people who remembered Johnny Ball were that likely to turn out for him. I suspect Denise’s fan base might not be a high turn out demographic either.)
So, people like soap actors or well liked national treasures will tend to do well. But every week the folk see more and more character in both senses and they also, I suggest, begin to base their voting more on a fair assessment of merit. I’d hold Chris Hollins up as an example of this. Middling celebrity before SCD. Did very well, and surprisingly so with his Charlston (Ola’s Charleston really) and that, I think, gave him the developing popularity to win through.
So what I think is going on is that celebrities (and pro-dancers) arrive with an endowment of popularity. This is going to be a function of all the things you mention. To this is added (or subtracted) a change in popularity. I think this is influenced in part by the actual dancing abilty. (I hold myself up as an example. Denise is my favourite celebrity this year regardless of whether she is any good. However, if she were in danger I would turn out to save her because if someone who tops the scoring most weeks doesn’t make it to the final that is wrong. I’m struggling to think of many people I would vote to keep in even if they were really poor.)
I definitely concur that doing badly in the judges’ scoring is likely to motivate voters to turn out. I think this might be a termporary phenomenon. One bad week gets rescued by popular support. Four in a row less so.
But again John Sergeant. (But I could suggest that he is a special case of character – inter alia – being revealed through The Dance.)
Difficult to draw any conclusions with out the voting dating. I’m seriously considering an FOI request to the BBC.