Strictly Come Dancing’s leakers may have finally been silenced by the BBC after a warning was put out by the Strictly Spoiler that this week’s announcement could be late, delayed or entirely absent.
Every week, scores of Strictly Come Dancing fans rush to check who was eliminated in the Sunday night dance-off elimination show from Saturday night onwards.
That’s made possible because the BBC doesn’t actually do the dance-off live on Sundays, but records it on Saturday night in front of the same audience as the main show.
Show runners go to great lengths to hide this, including making all the dancers, judges and hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman change their outfits inbetween the two shows in order to give the appearance of being on a different day.
The entire cast also say ‘yesterday’ or ‘on Saturday night’ in order to appear as if the programme is live on Sunday, even though it isn’t.
And it’s this setup which allows Dave Thorp, the Strictly spoiler, to leak the results of the dance-off each week with a tip off from an insider before the show hits BBC One on Sunday night.
On Saturday night, he warned that the spoiler could be ‘very late’ because ‘no moles have come forward’.
He said: “Just a heads up that it could be very late with the spoiler tonight or even tomorrow as no moles have come forward as yet. No moles never means no spoiler and I will post the spoiler as soon as I know so no need to bombard me with messages on the socials asking if I’ve heard yet!”
Tasha Ghourhi and Aljaz Skorjanec nailed an impressive routine, scoring 39 out of a possible 40, while at the other end of the scale, Nick Knowles and pro partner Luba Mushtuk could only muster a 21.
At even greater risk could be Punam Krishan and pro partner Gorka Marquez. The doctor only managed to scrape a 20 overall.
Of course, sometimes even the middle of the leaderboard isn’t safe and the likes of Sam Quek and Shayne Ward could find themselves at risk.
It's been reported that BBC bosses are putting in new procedures to "crack down" on the mole to prevent future results from being leaked. A source said: "Enough is enough, it isn't fair on the fans, they look forward to tuning in to see who will be dancing together."
But last week the spoiler still leaked in the 2024 series, so tonight may prove pivotal as to whether that continues.
