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Following the unprecedented outcome of last Saturday's Strictly Come Dancing semi finals, the ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ has been working on providing a solution for next week's final. We have worked in consultation with the production team, the remaining contestants and an independent adjudicator to determine the fairest outcome. During this process, fairness to the viewers who voted and the contestants themselves has been the guiding principle.

We considered a wide variety of options including the scrapping of all votes from last week's show. It was felt, however, that this would not be fair to the contestants nor to those who had voted. Instead, it was agreed that the fairest option was to allow the combined scores of the judges and the audience to carry over to the first show of next week's two show final. This was confirmed by an independent adjudicator as the fairest option.

In the interests of complete transparency we are taking the unprecedented step of revealing the marks allocated as a result of the audience vote from Saturday's show during the first of the two final shows (1840hrs). These scores will be added to those from the judges from last week.

This combined score will be announced on the leader board at the top of the first show. Our three couples will then dance and the judges will score them. The audience will vote on those performances. These results will be added to the leader board and the couple with the lowest overall score will leave the competition. In the second show the remaining two couples will start from scratch and go head to head with a public vote to decide who will be crowned Strictly Come Dancing Champion 2008. Only the viewing public will determine the winner.

The ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ recognises that this has been an unprecedented situation and would like to thank viewers and the contestants for their understanding. We note that there have been a number of complaints via email and telephone since Saturday night. We are offering refunds to anyone unhappy about their votes in the semi-final who would like to be reimbursed for their calls. Details of how to claim can be found in our semi-final refund statement and on the usual ³ÉÈË¿ìÊÖ audience service numbers.