The early morning of February 29 to March 1, 2024 has gone down in the history of television in Spain as one of the most confusing and Dantesque in memory. Everything because of what happened in Telecinco, during the celebration of the grand finale of Big Brother Duo 2, when the application intended to manage the votes for nominations, eliminations and the winner collapsed, leaving an unrepeatable moment at 1:50 in the morning .
“The app has collapsed, we apologize to all of you and that is why we have taken an exceptional measure. Tonight we do not proclaim the winner, we will do so on Sunday at a special gala. We extend the vote until Sunday,” were the words of Marta Flich a few minutes after the broadcast ended. An unusual event that will be resolved this coming Sunday, when Mediaset and Zeppelin broadcast a second live final.
To liven up the wait for an unusual event, the presenter of the contest and the finalists, Lucía González and Asraf Beno, have gone to the set of ¡De friday! with Beatriz Archidona and Santi Acosta. Flich has been in charge of explaining what happened, since the failure of the application occurred in stages throughout the 4 hours that the final lasted. Even before starting, contingency measures had already been taken.
The presenter explained that those responsible for managing the app, outside of Mediaset and the production company Zeppelin, had multiplied the reinforcement of the code by six in the face of the avalanche of votes that was expected. Already at the beginning of Thursday’s gala, the 2 million votes cast had been exceeded, but problems began to surface around 11:30 p.m., when Manuel González was eliminated from the program.
Upon resuming voting for Lucía and Asraf, users began to experience problems, a fact that reached a critical point at the time of the midnight surprise. At that time, the percentages were at 50.2 and 49.8 respectively, and the subsequent wave of users found themselves unable to cast their vote. An exceptional contingency that forced a drastic decision to be made, in turn canceling the Final Debate with Ion Arramendi.
Marta Flich confirmed that the postponement of the final was decided so as not to harm the audience. They considered that cutting the votes in the middle of the rulings and with a critical surprise would harm the viewers, defending that they are the ones in charge of giving life to the program and making important decisions. This has also affected the plans of Asraf and Lucía, who have been forced to remain in Madrid until Sunday.
