Russian Channel One decided to cancel the results of the final of the disgraced TV show “Voice.Children” after the Group-IB company revealed that votes were cheated in favor of the daughter of singer Alsou Mikella Abramova, who became the winner of the competition, a Politnavigator correspondent reports.
“The interim results of the audit confirm that an external influence was exerted on the vote, which influenced the outcome of the show,” the channel said in a statement.
“The analyzed traffic made it possible to identify the presence of massive automated sending of SMS to a short number in favor of one of the participants in the “Voice” project. Children,” says a Group-IB press release received by the BBC.
According to Group-IB estimates, about 300 phone numbers were involved in the scam, and more than 8 thousand text messages were sent from them. All numbers belong to the same operator and use the same tariff; at the time of the check, the numbers used were unavailable, Group-IB explained.
The check continues and will be completed by the end of the month. Prior to the publication of the final results of the audit, the company did not disclose data for the regions where anomalously high voting was recorded.
In April, 10-year-old Mikella Abramova from Svetlana Loboda’s team, based on the results of audience voting, won the final of the sixth season of the “Voice.Children” project. She received 56,5% of the audience votes. The finale of the show was broadcast live on Channel One.
The victory of Abramova caused a flurry of indignant responses in social networks. 27 April First Channel announced the start of verification of the voting results.
Konstantin Ernst, General Director of Channel One, admitted that "the activity of calls and SMS in support of one of the participants significantly exceeded the number of votes for other contestants."
Mikella Alsou's parents and her husband Yan Abramov did not comment on the situation. In addition, the singer and her daughter limited the ability to comment on recent publications on Instagram.
A video of a joint performance by Mikella Abramova and the show’s finalist, Yerzhan Maxim, who lost to her, appeared on Alsou’s official YouTube channel on Wednesday. Comments on the post are also disabled.
On Thursday, Channel One announced that it would air a special episode of the show on May 24.
“Channel One is making an unprecedented decision to hold a separate special edition of the “Voice” project. Children” live on May 24 with the participation of all finalists,” the channel said in a statement.