Only yesterday, the BBC said ‘there’s not a hope of a refund’, concerning the phone-vote fudging on Strictly Come Dancing. Guess what? The BBC are going to give everyone a refund. This probably had something to do with the fact that the number of complaints topped 1,800. It really has been the year of people complaining hasn’t it? I’d guess that the complaints industry is the only booming business of 2008. Last evening, the BBC head of entertainment production, Jon Beazley, told BBC Two spin-off show It Takes Two that if viewers felt strongly about the issue the corporation would “refund that call cost”.

Related: Our Strictly Come Dancing Section | What do you make of the whole Strictly Come Dancing vote-fudge?

Initially, the votes cast from the show, which saw people trying to vote contestants off only to find out that no-one got the chop, were to be carried forward to this weekend’s final on BBC One. However, due to a gathering of an angry mob, the BBC decided it might be a good idea to give the money back.

Viewers sent 1,687 emails and 193 calls complaining, while further complaints were also made to Ofcom, the media regulator. An Ofcom spokesman said it would assess these in the light of the broadcasting code to ensure the audience had not been misled.

“[Saturday's] votes will count and that’s really important. They have been registered on Saturday and will roll forward,” Beazley told It Takes Two. What’s also important to say as well is that if somebody is really unhappy about that and they feel very strongly that they want to have a refund from their voting last Saturday, then we will refund that call cost.”

Here’s what the BBC had to say in a separate statement, issued last night:

“Following the unprecedented outcome of last Saturday’s Strictly Come Dancing semi-finals, the BBC 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. 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 in the usual manner. These results will be added to the leaderboard 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 BBC 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 1,687 emails and 193 calls of complaint since Saturday night. We will be offering refunds to anyone unhappy about their votes in the semi-final who would like to be reimbursed for their calls. Details for how they can do this will be available on the Strictly Come Dancing website from Tuesday and on the usual BBC audience service numbers.”

Click here to visit the BBC SCD site.