Eddie's callers mistakenly voted for Australian Idol
November 06, 2007 12:00am
Herald Sun

THOUSANDS of Channel 9 viewers were left confused last night after a phone-in blunder saw them voting for a contestant on a rival network reality show.

A competition on Nine's Who Wants to be a Multi-Millionaire, hosted by Eddie McGuire, offered viewers the chance to win $10,000 by either calling a 1902 number or text messaging their answer.

But when viewers first called, they were directed to Ten's Australian Idol.

McGuire was forced to apologise live on-air.

Duncan Murray, CEO of belong, a communications company that works with 1900 numbers, said: "A technical error at belong . . . caused some calls made to another competition service to receive an Idol voting message for a short period of time.

"This error did not impact the Idol voting result. This . . . result was audited prior to its announcement."

A Nine spokeswoman said the number displayed on screen for two minutes was correct and the same one used for the past two weeks.

The Idol recipient of the votes, Carl Riseley, a member of the Royal Australian Navy, survived last night's verdict show and made the last three.



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