Busy signals met more than 100 calls placed by the AP from Los Angeles as well as the home states of Fantasia Barrino (North Carolina), Diana DeGarmo (Georgia) and Jasmine Trias (Hawaii). A total of four votes were successfully cast.
In that article, Kevin Laverty, a spokesman for Verizon, acknowledged there was a problem moving the calls along.
The Griffins of "Family Guy," including little Stewie, have had to cover up in the post-Janet Jackson TV world.
(Fox Broadcasting)
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Other reports dealt with the final episode of the second season, when Fox said 24 million votes had been cast and Ruben Studdard beat Clay Aiken by 134,000.
But Verizon, the nation's largest phone company, said it had received 116 million more calls than average that day, while SBC Communications reported an increase of 115 million calls, according to Broadcasting & Cable magazine, suggesting a logjam in which millions of viewers were not able to get through. Although it's impossible to know where each call went, Verizon's Daniel Diaz Zapata told Broadcasting & Cable that "there was no obvious reason for all those calls, other than 'American Idol.' " Verizon and SBC handled nearly one-third of the long-distance market at that time.
On the other hand, the producers have changed the show's format. For the first several weeks, singers will be divided into the chicks vs. the guys. The two in each group with the fewest votes will be eliminated.
They've also raised the age limit for contestants to 28. One of the show's judges, Simon Cowell, noted that his favorite singer is still Frank Sinatra and that Sinatra was at his peak in his fifties.
"Are you saying we should have 50-year-old contestants?" fellow judge Randy Jackson asked, surprised.
"Yeah, why not?" Cowell said, relieving himself of any shred of credibility he had left. Not that he had much, after earlier telling critics that Kiss's Gene Simmons was "superb," "fantastic" and "brilliant" as a guest judge during the auditions phase of this year's show.
"This season is going to be magical," the show's third judge, Paula Abdul, told skeptical critics.
