Well this has been a bizarre day. The Strictly Spoiler has suddenly received a ton of attention from the British media with articles appearing on The Daily Star, The Sun, The Daily Mirror, Now Magazine and I’ve also been approached for comment by the Daily Mail who ran their own (and the most balanced yet) article as I was typing this post.
Many of the articles so far have taken the slant that in posting the Christmas Special results before Christmas I am a grinch trying to ruin Christmas for millions of Strictly Viewers. Nothing could be further from the truth.
Before I talk about the Christmas Special Spoiler it’s best to take a short while to talk about why this site exists and why I do what I do. A lot of this is covered in the about section linked above but many journalists seemed to have completely missed that.
The Strictly Come Dancing Sunday Results Show is pre recorded on a Saturday Night shortly after the main live show. There exists online spoiler threads on some discussion forums and spoiler groups who source the results usually from audience moles and share them for the benefit of the viewers. Several years ago I was sourcing the spoiler from these groups and direct messaging it to some of my followers on Twitter who wanted to learn the results. Eventually it got to the point where I was spending a lot of time sending these direct messages and so I looked for another way.
I have a personal blog and originally I started posting the spoiler to that blog. Posting the spoiler has also been my way of protesting the decision by the BBC to pre record the results and broadcast them a day after the event. We live in a day and age where information can be transmitted globally in the blink of an eye so it’s stupid to pre record the results and expect them not to leak out. I would love it if the BBC reverted to a Saturday Night live results show but sadly they won’t because the Sunday Night show gets amazing ratings (in spite of what I do). Ratings shouldn’t matter to the BBC but there we are!
I didn’t for one minute think in doing this I would eventually be operating a site viewed by hundreds of thousands of people each week. The popularity this site has received has been entirely accidental (one of my friends jokingly once said I’d created a beast and occasionally it does feel like that) but in 2014 traffic to the site started to spike massively and then it’s grown ever since. Despite the growth less than 1% of people who watch Strictly view the spoiler here and Strictly’s audience is continuing to grow despite the results being out there on sites like this. Even fewer people have viewed the Christmas Special Spoiler which seems to be causing all this fuss.
As far as posting the Christmas Special Spoiler is concerned this is about providing a service to my site’s visitors all of whom are clearly hungry for spoilers. I’m not trying to ruin Christmas or spoil the Christmas Special for all Strictly viewers. The people who view this site are a small minority of the strictly audience but those people have the right to enjoy the show in whatever manner they choose. If people want to watch the show knowing the result that is down to them and their own preference.
It is also extremely difficult for me to spoil the show for anyone who doesn’t want to be spoiled, at least not directly. All my posts are clearly labelled as a spoiler, this site is clearly labelled as a spoiler site and I only ever post spoilers to Facebook or Twitter in the form of a clearly labelled link that people are free to click on or not. I do not post the results publicly to social networking. People have to actively seek out the spoilers I post in order to view them!
Spoilers aren’t a new thing. Many newspapers are frequently telling us about upcoming plot lines for soaps such as Eastenders and Coronation Street including the Christmas specials. Presumably they too are trying to ruin Christmas? In fact it is deeply ironic that The Daily Mirror, a few hours after calling me a “Festive Grinch” for posting the Christmas Special spoiler, proceeded to post an article with festive spoilers for Coronation Street. Pot, kettle, black anyone?
Hopefully the above clears things up but if any media editors still have questions I suggest they get in touch with me just like the Daily Mail did and I’ll be happy to clear things up
Complaints to the BBC, The Daily Star, The Daily Mirror, The Sun and Now Magazine!
I flipping <3 spoilers. I have anxiety issues, and by accessing spoilers I can enjoy shows with 'suspense' just like everyone else, but they don't cause me upset or anxiety. Sounds weird, but it works for me. It makes me feel like everyone else. Keep doing it!!
I have anxiety issues too (so this media attention isn’t helping that but I’m coping) so maybe that’s why I like spoilers too. Never really thought of it like that
Dave who won the strictly Christmas special ?
Dave I love your site. The media love having news first and are just pissed they aren’t allowed/can’t be the ones to tell people first. The amount of stuff they spew out and spoil (for example I don’t watch soaps but my mum is a fan and gets annoyed when the media talk about Christmas plot lines etc).
I was coming to you when you used to write it on your blog and I remember really having to search to find someone who actually got it right. It’s my mum and mines weekly ritual to watch strictly with a glass bubbles, have disagreements on who was best and go on about the dresses, hair etc, the difference between us is, I come to your site to find out who’s gone but she waits to see the result unfold on Sunday. So It’s all about personal choice and you could not make what this site is about any clearer. Thing is you even have to open that wks thread and scroll down a bit to find out so if (and that’s a big if) someone came here by accident they’d not know instantly.
Dave I admire that you do this under your name rather than hide under anonymous like say digital spy, I am however really sorry you have anxiety that’s being made worse over this and it makes me mad the media are trying to have a pop about something so harmless but you’re doing nothing wrong so please try to ignore the negativity. I for one am truly grateful you’re here and telling us each week so thank you.
Hi Polly,
Thanks for your kind words about the media attention. As you say they are quick to post spoilers themselves for soaps and the like so it is a case of the pot calling the kettle black for some of the articles I’ve had about me this weekend
As far as doing this under my name is concerned this stems back to when I was posting the spoiler to my personal blog rather than a dedicated site. A lot of my search traffic was searching for “Dave Thorp Strictly” or other derivatives and so when I made the migration back in 2014 to this domain I still had to feature my name to pick up that search traffic.
Yeah the people on digital spy do it anonymously but I don’t see any issue with that and if I could do it anonymously myself I might choose to do so especially after this weekend. But I’m kind of in this a bit too deeply now that my name has become synonymous with the spoiler for a lot of people which as I said in this post was entirely accidental and not something I deliberately set out to do. I won’t take anything away from the people on digital spy who arrange moles. Without them there wouldn’t be a spoiler here or indeed anywhere else online and I’ll be talking more about this next weekend
For gdness sake. If you want a spoiler, it’ll be there in some shape or form on line. As Dave says, it has to be actively sought. I used to look up the betting sites to discover who was out, then I discovered the strictly spoiler and I choose to know on Saturday, not too long after the life show.
I love knowing on Saturday, it doesn’t spoil Sundays show for me – perversely I enjoy it more!
Nobody ‘forces’ people to view the site for goodness sake, we source the information because we want to.
I agree with jane i enjoy the sunday show just as much even though i know the result in advance. It makes for a most relaxing evening
Thank god for Dave ! The pathetic fallacy that the BBC expect us to believe ‘last night’ blah blah… I agree, put a result show on Saturday….
It is entirely up to people to choose whether or not to find out who went, and I for one will continue to look forward to my twitter ping telling me the spoiler is in
Knowing the results on Saturday night before bedtime enhances my whole enjoyment of Strictly, not the other way around. I came relatively late to the Strictly party and despite being a massive BBC fan, I really cannot abide the pretence of the Sunday results show although I love watching the show itself, even after I know the result. I used to be an accountant and I can quite understand why, once you’ve gather the cast and crew, judges, dancers, audience, band etc. together for a long day rehearsing and recording, you really wouldn’t want to go to all the logistics, expense and hassle of reassembling the next day to crank it all up again, especially not for 30-40 mins’ of telly. Also, you need to give everyone involved at least one day off a week to recover and prep for next week’s huge amount of work too. Much better to do it the way they do it BUT simply to drop the pretence or do it a whole lot better. It is impossible for all those in front of the camera to remember to use the past tense when speaking of something happening on the same day. Bonkers. Madness. Daft. Stop it immediately. Just be truthful with us, that’s all I want. It is clear that the vast majority are happy to play along so it is going to change nothing except for those of us who like WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get). To be clear, the Strictly Spoiler ADDS to my enjoyment of my favourite TV programme, not detracts.
More power to your elbow Dave, if people don’t want to know, don’t look simples!
My primary motive for viewing this site is to see a public voting profile. This will not be as large as the BBC voting figures, but the sample is probably large enough to give a fair assessment of the public mood. I deplore the total lack of transparency of the BBC results, with no explanation of how the judges votes and public votes are combined. There probably is some method in the BBC madness, but we will never know, and cannot debate the fairness of it, or offer any statistical critique of it.
Keep up the good work Dave. Nothing wrong with a clearly labelled ‘spoiler’… people can choose to read it or not. My phone gives me spoilers about the footy results when I’m out, even though I might be waiting to watch MOTD that evening ! 😀
I really love knowing who has gone out and it does not spoil watching the show for me and I don’t always watch the results show but that is my choice. Yes I know the results of the Christmas special but have not told anyone else in the house. It is my choice to find out who is in the dance off and who has gone
Who won the strictly Christmas special ?
You can read the spoiler at https://www.strictlyspoiler.com//2016/11/29/strictly-come-dancing-2016-christmas-special-spoilers/
I think it is your choice to read it and personally I like being able to rewatch it when I still have time on the weekends after finding out the result.
Spoilers only exist because people want them. If nobody did then this site wouldn’t exist…
And yes the BBC are daft for thinking they can get away with the Sunday results show unscathed. It’s blatantly obvious it’s recorded on Saturday after the live show!