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I got this information from a poster in the American Idol official boards regarding the Land line call percentages for each Idol contestant for last Tuesday's theme ( 21st century music ).

Here it is ... gives you an indication of who is getting most of the votes.

See here :
http://myidol.idolonfox.com/Boards/topic.aspx?tid=141071

Combined time zone / island averages:

AT&T landline only

taylor: 29.99%
chris: 15.68%
kellie: 11.01%
paris: 7%
katharine: 6.64%
lisa: 6.14%
elliott: 6.08%
mandisa: 5.96%
bucky: 5.72%
ace: 5.28%

The landline results of this sort and others from
"dialing" estimates have had Taylor in the #1 spot by a LARGE MARGIN since day 1 of voting. they have been pretty spot-on in their stats.

This past week the bottom 6-7 were so close in numbers that mobile phone votes or texting was literally make or break for them as far as ranking goes. It's fun to see these "landline totals" and figure them into the busy signal type way of guesstimating... turns out to be quite similar when you look at the numbers.

These "landline totals" are supposedly the percentage of the populace who voted using standard landlines for each contestant. There is a margin of error, and if you add up the "averages", they come out to be about 99.5 instead of 100 because of rounding off & margins, etc.

They've been pretty derned accurate last year & this year they've been spot-on. Mobile calls & texting are make or break in some cases... This week (and last week) was a perfect example of that-- these are just landlines, no telling what the mobile & text totals are.

A lot of folks don't even have landlines and only use modem or mobile, so it's very iffy... but the landline totals & "busy" percentages give a good rough estimate of the rankings. this week alot of the contestants were SO CLOSE in their totals that the bottom 6-7 were in a danger zone & no real accurate "vote-off" prediction was possible without more (mobile/text) info.

BOTTOM LINE : IT AIN'T EVEN CLOSE.

THE ONLY QUESTION IS --- WILL THE SOUL PATROLERS GET LAZY AND COMPLACENT BECAUSE OF THE HUGE LEAD TAYLOR HICKS IS GETTING ( DOUBLE THAT OF THE NEXT STRONGEST VOTE GETTER ).

For your reading pleasure....

http://www.realityblurred.com/realitytv/archives/april_1/2006_Apr_01_fox_acquires_sites

FOX buying DialIdol, Vote for the Worst, and reality TV blogs to promote American Idol

This satirical story is part of the April 1, 2006 edition of reality blurred.

News Corp., continuing to acquire popular online properties, has purchased American Idol-focused sites DialIdol and Vote for the Worst. The sites will be folded into the company’s MySpace community once the checks clear and/or FOX Security finishes their friendly visits with the web sites’ owners.

The plan, a FOX spokesperson said, is to let MySpace community members edit DialIdol and Vote for the Worst’s web sites with Thomas’ MySpace Editor, thus making the sites illegible and impossible to visit. “We’re positive that, once the text is fluorescent green on a background that’s an animated gif, and a Scott Savol song blares at top volume the second the page loads, no one will want to visit any more. They’ll be too busy having seizures. The threat will be neutralized—I mean, the fans will have control,” the spokesperson said.

The network is also acquiring seven unnamed reality TV-focused blogs, particularly those that post incoherent, poorly written recaps of FOX shows. Specifically, those that have journalism-sounding words in their URLs and regularly post press releases verbatim are being targeted. A FOX VP told reporters, “It’s so great to know that these blogs truly understand journalism and critical analysis. These are smart people, copying and pasting our press releases and posting them in order to sell Google ads, sneak into Google News, and inflate their BlogAds pageviews.”

“It makes perfect sense since they’re already basically an extension of our marketing departments. Now, we’ll be able to get our propaganda—I mean, ‘assets’—in front of more eyeballs. I love new media,” he said. The exec also said that there’s another positive effect. “With all the time and resources we spend trying to keep Paula Abdul away from the male contestants, we just don’t have time to read blogs any more to find out which contestants we need to build up or tear down.”

Other networks are planning similar acquisitions, afraid their shows will suffer in the ratings without the attention of blogs. Networks have also convented task forces and ad hoc committees to study other new trends like “podcasting,” “clicking on links,” and “watching shows that don’t suck.”

I only use my cell phone to vote. Most people 50 and under have cellphones these days.

Why? Because my cell phone is quicker when redialing and my landline is tied up with my dial-up ISP. (dial-up ISP is my only choice here in my rural area.)

I voted at least 250 times last week with my cell. I can get in at least 6 votes in during a period of one minute with my cellphone. I know I could get more in if I didn't listen to the guy say "Thanks for voting for contestant X"

I will be power voting each week now.