Germany's Best - Cheats

It is a great day to gloat about a misfortune that befell German "public" TV broadcaster ZDF.
We apologize for giving in to the petty impulse. Well, a little, not too much.

What happened?

According to reports like this one in Bild, the team working on the show Germany's Best - Men and Germany's Best - Women resorted to old fashioned vote rigging, making some people vastly more popular and others less so.

The team used three polls to select the celebrities  for the shows. One poll was among the German TV weekly Hoer Zu, the other an online poll, the third a poll by a polling firm.

In the end, the show's makers were not happy with either one of them, so they fixed the ranking. Bild reports some of the changes, and we picked the most egregious one: former soccer legend Beckenbauer was bumped up from number 31 (out of fifty) to number 9.
The top 50 in each category were supposedly the people the Germans considered their "Best". Invitations to the studio were sent, talks were scheduled, praise was heaped on the grandees.

Nice job!

After a few days of soul searching, the chief of the ZDF entertainment division offered his resignation, which was graciously accepted.

The series Germany's Best was cancelled.

We, as 100% non TV viewers, feel this cancellation is a shame. The "public" broadcaster once again failed to see the full potential of a brand.

In the world of nimble public broadcasting with big budgets, the first reaction should have been to create an episode called "Germany's Best - Cheats".

Next time, maybe?