Sergeant's exit from Strictly triggers 2000 complaints
LONDON - John Sergeant's withdrawal from 'Strictly Come Dancing' has resulted in more than 2,000 complaints to the BBC from viewers who are unhappy about the way he left the show.
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
The political journalist quit the show saying that he wanted to stop the joke from going too far as there was a "real danger that I might win the competition", despite being consistently rated bottom of the judges' leader board.
The BBC has received 2,094 complaints so far from viewers upset about Sergeant leaving, compared with 377 complaints about him remaining in the show before he decided to quit.
There was speculation online that he had been forced to quit by the BBC as the judges of the show applied pressure to stop the latest series of 'Strictly Come Dancing' becoming a farce.
The judges placed Sergeant and his partner Kristina Rihanoff at the bottom of the leader board week after week, but thanks to votes from the public the pair remained in the competition.
Lead judge Len Goodman said that Sergeant's dancing made a "nonsense of the show" while fellow judge Arlene Phillips said he was "outstanding at dancing really badly".
On last Saturday's show, actress Cherie Lunghi was voted out of the competition after finding herself in the bottom two with model Lisa Snowdon.
Jay Hunt, controller of BBC One, said in a statement: "John has told us of his plans to leave 'Strictly Come Dancing' and we are very sad to see him go.
"He has been an entertaining contestant and is hugely popular with the viewers. We would have liked him to stay but we respect his decision to leave."
Strictly Come Dancing: Sargeant and dance partner Rihanoff
Comments
Ross Thompson - 20/11/2008
Has this just been plucked out of the sun newspaper? Why should i care?
Mark Young - 21/11/2008
now this is real news.
Martin Corcoran - 21/11/2008
I enjoyed the story and found it relevant. Sergeant should've stayed on Strictly.
Roger OThornhill - 21/11/2008
I second that. Given the wider context of the BBC upsetting licence fee payers over Ross/Brand and now they have seemingly applied pressure on a participant to leave a show after licence fee payers spent money voting for him to stay in the show, it is very relevant. The BBC yet again showing contempt for its viewers. Ross - it's because of the failure of people like you to read between the lines that the BBC gets away with this kind of scandalous behaviour.
Mark Griffiths - 21/11/2008
Expect they will change the rules next year. But, this year, John Sergeant did the right thing. He moves out at the top of his credibility and the show gets to carry on with the best dancers and its credibility. And Ross Thompson and Mark Young can pretend that they're too busy to comment on such trivia. If you don't care, don't blog.
ormiston groove - 21/11/2008
Oh, please. It's not the BBC displaying its contempt for its viewers, it's four dance judges displaying their contempt for a shit dancer. Get some perspective.
Dave Stoker - 21/11/2008
Kind of agree with Mark on this one: the show has an identity crisis between legitimate dance contest / pure entertainment. If the nation sees it as the latter but the judges don't, something will have to change. The whole storm & teacup is summed up brilliantly in today's Times: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/martin_samuel/article5201229.ece