Sky News reports:

Thousands of people who voted in the Saturday night final of ITV’s Dancing on Ice have been told their text votes were not counted.

Phone giant Vodafone has said that 11,500 texts were not delivered to ITV until Monday morning and customers received a message that their vote was too late.

Voters will be automatically refunded if their vote did not arrive in time to be included in the final count, the company has said.

ITV claimed the missing texts represented less than 1% of the votes cast on Saturday night and would not have affected the outcome of the contest, which was won by former England rugby ace Kyran Bracken.

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A statement from the television company said: “Vodafone have assured us that this was an isolated problem.

“With almost one-and-a-half million votes cast, these late votes would not have changed the result of any part of the competition.”

Uh-oh! The phone votes scandals refuse to die!

Latest on the block is the Dancing On Ice final – Vodafone have owned up losing 11,500 votes on the Saturday night final. Now, while I’m sure the scandal makes for great headlines (The Star is running with TV ICE DANCE FINAL A CON), the reality is that the missing votes only account for less than 1% of the total, and anyone whose vote was missed gets a refund.

I think that’s fair enough, don’t you?

It would be nice if ITV released the final vote percentages so that we can see for ourselves how close the competition was and how much of an impact 1% of votes would have made.

If the missing votes were representative of the other votes, then there was probably a fairly good spread between contestants anyway. Unless there was a problem voting for a specific contestant like Claire.

Maybe we need to see more transparency in television phone votes?

After months of gruelling training and nine weeks of competing live to the nation the three finalists from 2007 were chosen, with one finally crowned winner of the series.

But it’s not time to hang up their boots just yet as Dancing On Ice – The Champion of Champions see this years finalists up against the celebrity stars from 2006.

Gaynor Faye, Stefan Booth and Bonnie Langford have been sharpening their skates and practising their performances to rejoin former skating partners, Daniel, Kristina & Matt to take on this year’s rivals . Each couple will be competing against each other to be crowned Dancing on Ice Champion of Champions.

Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean will take to the ice for once last spectacular performance for 2007, with Phillip Schofield and Holly Willowby presenting as the six couples battle it out on the ice. Will last year’s winner Gaynor Faye be able to regain her original crown for a second year? Or will this year’s skating stars have raised the bar too high?

The judges scores and the publics votes will be combined and the two couples with the HIGHEST overall scores will skate again in the results show skate-off.

The vote lines will reopen for the public to decide who should be crowned Dancing on Ice – The Champion of Champions.

ITV1 Network Saturday 24 March 6:55 PM to 8:10 PM

It was a GREAT final! It was my dream final!

Clare Buckfield and Kyran Bracken really both deserved to be there and there versions of The Bolero were enchanting to watch.

I couldn’t choose between the two and with each routine my mind changed about who I wanted to win, in reality, both went in with such fabulous attitudes that there couldn’t really be a loser tonight.

Kyran was crowned the ice skating king, and Clare looked genuinely happy for him. It was British TV at it’s best!

Stephen Fry has compared watching Dancing On Ice to “torture”.

“Dancing On Ice is outrageous – I would rather suck t***s from someone’s a**e than watch it. It’s torture to me,” Fry told The Sun.

“Reality TV shows are just tedious to me. I’ve had a vision of doing a show about people who watch them to show them the error of their ways.”

I bet if we strapped him down and made him watch a whole series of Dancing On Ice or X Factor he would soon change his mind!

If you are watching the Dancing On Ice Final on ITV and want to share your views or see what the rest of Britain is thinking, then be sure to jump over to our forum where we will be covering the show LIVE!

Kyran Bracken, Duncan James and Clare Buckfield are all skated up and ready to go for tomorrow nights Dancing On Ice Final.

Current favourite to win, rugby star, Kyran Bracken said: “There is pressure anyway whether we are favourites or not favourites.”
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“We’re just going to skate as well as we can and let the rest take care of itself,” he said.

Fellow finalist Duncan James said that his two-year-old daughter is his biggest fan. “She’s so loyal,” he said.

Meanwhile Clare Buckfield said: “To reach the final was a dream come true and to win would be fantastic.”

Duncan James has sustaibned a broken rib after falling during a routine for Saturday nights show.

But in true Duncan style he is determined not to let his injury get in the way of winning the contest.

Duncan says, “It’s really painful and I’m finding it hard to breathe. Before I can even think about training I’m going to see the physio for treatment.

“I’m upset because I’m so excited about getting through to the final and I don’t want it to stop me doing lifts. Hopefully it’ll be better this week.”

Finally! Emily Symons leaves Dancing On ice….its was a result that was almost inevitable.

Emily, 37, failed to impress the judges despite an acrobatic display in a skate-off with ex-Blue star Duncan James, 38.

Duncan was a unanimous choice. Aussie Emily admitted: “The others were far ahead of me.”

I think we would all agree!

Duncan James has revealed that he wants to give up his music career in order to spend more time with his daughter.

Duncan said: “I never wanted to do a solo album, which is why I was the last one in Blue to do it.

“But I had to honour my contract with EMI and I’d signed for another couple of albums.

“I haven’t been happy in the music industry since Blue ended and never liked it when we had to go around Europe promoting, even in the band.

“Now I’ve got a young daughter I want to spend time with her, not sitting in a room in Germany being asked the same questions by different people all day.”

Thankfully ITV have announced today that tomorrow nights Dancing On Ice Semi Final will go ahead. They released a statement today saying:

ITV can confirm that Deloitte have performed the first stage of their review of the interactive processes and procedures contained within Dancing on Ice. On the basis of the information available, including Deloitte’s findings, ITV is satisfied that the programme is being operated in accordance with the ICSTIS and OFCOM codes. As part of our complete commitment to ongoing compliance, ITV will continue to observe the operation of interactive services with Deloitte’s assistance. Deloitte are close to completing their initial review of other current shows and we hope to be making further announcements next week.

“ITV is a responsible broadcaster, committed to fairness, transparency and accountability in all our interactions with viewers. Viewers can be confident that any interactive services appearing on ITV are subject to a thorough independent review and will continue to be monitored.”

Simon Shaps, Director of Television at ITV said:

“We are delighted that Dancing on Ice is going ahead as planned and viewers will be able to vote as normal for their favourite celebrities in Saturday’s semi-final.”

Andi Peters, host of the ITV spinoff show Dancing On Ice Exclusive, has broken his ankle while rehearsing a routine with his partner Kristina Lenko.

Andi was set to perform the routine next week with Stephen Gatelys former skating partner, but it looks unlikely that he will be back on the ice anytime soon.

Andi, 36, said: “I didn’t think anything was broken until I looked down and saw just how big my ankle had swollen up.

“It was then that I began to think something major might be wrong. It was as if I had snapped a pencil in half.

“The last time I fell over on Dancing On Ice I only had a bruised bum, this time it’s a proper injury. Nobody should underestimate how challenging this show is.”

The big question on all Dancing On Ice fans lips….will this weeks semi finals be cancelled?

ITV has suspended all premium-rate interactive services amid the row over TV phone-ins. It has now launched an independent review after it emerged that X Factor viewers had been overcharged £200,000 in an interactive vote blunder.

ITV said the semi finals of Dancing On Ice would only go ahead on Saturday if its phone-in procedures had been shown to be sound.

The tabloids have been reporting that the show may not go ahead and may be cancelled or rescheduled until next week. I have to admit I was temporarily gutted at the prospect of missing my weekly Duncan fix.

However there is light at the end of the tunnel. ITV chiefs announced today that they were confident the show would pass any scrutiny and therefore will go ahead on Saturday…here’s hoping!

Friends of rugby star Kyran Bracken, have revealed that they are worried about Kyran and how hard he is pushing himself to learn the Dancing On Ice routines.

Kyran has admitted that the schedule is tough saying:

“One of the biggest worries each week is the next routine,” Kyran admitted. “And the thing is we have been in first place or right up there for the last three weeks. Everyone is coming up saying, ‘You’ll be in the final’ and talking like it is already decided. But that puts pressure on me because I want to keep it up.”

A close friend told the Daily Star Sunday: “Kyran has to learn to take time away from the ice. He should really think about his schedule and make sure he is not overdoing it. The last thing we want is for him to crash out or end this show an exhausted wreck.”

Fresh from the rink of ITV’s Dancing On ice, Lisa Scott Lee has revealed that she would love Steps to reunite as Take That have done and hopefully Boyzone won’t.

Speaking to the Sunday People Lisa stated:

“I would definitely welcome a Steps reunion and follow in the footsteps of Take That.

“We’ve all kept in touch, so I’d love it if we could get back together.”