The growing public interest in television reality shows in Ghana has come with controversies surrounding the results of such polls. Do public votes really help to select deserving winners? Whether the show is a beauty pageant or is about singing, acting or dancing the public either maintain or evict contestants via mobile phone text voting. This is the system that has been brewing controversy among the public. Some people believe that reality shows and text polling have livened up television programming and provided the viewing public to make their choices. They maintain that the system is "democracy at its best" since the judges' scores alone do not determine the winner. However, opposers of that arrangement contend that those who truly deserve to win do not get the chance to do so. They say that contestants who have large support but not necessarily talented win in the end. Recent public admission by some contestants or their close associates that their votes were actually arranged has deepened the doubts about the public votes system. Recently, the boss of Bandex, a music production company which adopted some of the contestants of the TV3 Mentor show admitted on Peace FM's Entertainment Review that the company provided phone credits for some voters to keep Erico, winner of TV3 Mentor III in the competition. Miss Malaika 2007, Laurie Naa Lamile Lawson also admitted in last week's edition of The Mirror that she voted for herself on some occasions during the competition which she eventually won. This set Graphic Showbiz out to town to sample views on public voting since the year has begun and viewers are sure to be hit with a number of television reality shows soon. According to Araba, an interior decorator, most times, a contestant's stay in a show is not based on his or her talent but on the number of SMS text votes he or she received from the public. "Take TV3 Mentor for instance where the public contributed 70 percent while 30 percent went to judges. This I believe is not good enough. We have heard stories of parents, church members and friends providing credits for people to vote for their contestants. “I am not saying the winners are not talented but I won't be surprised if those eliminated were even more talented but because their family or friends could not afford to buy credits, they may have missed out.” Abena Korama, a journalist, said in choosing the best, public voting is not very ideal because there should be technical eyes. "You see, the public can just look at physical appearance and based upon that will vote to maintain or eliminate a beauty contestant. We have seen it happen several times on reality shows. "One way of giving such shows some credibility is by making them more transparent and giving them a balance so that the technical people, who most of the time serve as judges, have as much say as the public. "On the other hand, we know that the organisers of such shows also need to make money so the more people vote, the more money they make.” She said the originators of such international reality shows as American Idol, Big Brother, West African Idol among others, have ensured that their final verdicts are spared much criticism. "Results of these shows are all based on public votes but they are more transparent. One of the most effective ways, the American Idol programme has adopted is that a voter is restricted in the number of times he or she can vote for a particular contestant in each episode. "I believe when the service providers here put these measures in place, it will go a long way to curb the criticisms that characterise the announcement of winners," she said. Source: The Mirror/Adwoa Serwaa Bonsu