How Real Are These Reality Shows?

Reality shows have been the order of the day for quite sometime now. Since they have captured all the prime time slots that is available there is hardly any choice left for viewers. Be it Jhalak Dikh Laja, Star Voice of India or the Indian Idol in the north or shows in the same vein such as Mastana Mastana, Idea Star Singer down south. Switch to international channels and all you get is Asian Idols, Survivor etc

Now it would surely take a gigantic effort to keep away from all of them. Its almsot like a dare by the media asking the viewers to try and ignore these reality shows. So well to put it succinctly I also end up watching one or two of these. As probably most of the other viewers I have also done my bit of cribbing about the unwanted display of emotions by the contestants, the exaggeration by the judges and of course also cheered a worthy contestant.

But the only thing that nags me no end is the way they claim that these shows rely on popular public voting. And how the hell do they do it?

For one, none of these shows are telecast live, most of the episodes are shot atleast few weeks ago and so how does the sms's sent by viewers count?

Let me elaborate - Rakhi Sawant made a guest appearance in Star VOI (Shaadi Special episode) much before the start of Nach Baliye 3. She said she had walked in straight from the sets of Nach 3 and urged viewers not to miss the upcoming show. Rakhi's performace with the same costume (the one with which she appeared on VOI) was telecast much later. So how would did it matter whether viewers voted for her or not during the initial episodes?

Similarly trailers of the final episode of Nach Baliye 3 is being aired since last week, which shows the host/compere - Hussain stating that the 'sms vote' counting is almost done and the results are just to be announced. Yet by the end of the day's episode viewers were pleaded/begged to cast their votes for their favourite contestants. So why ask for viewers vote when probably the results have been pre-decided?

Its all perplexing. I am not naive and do realise that these sms's translates to revenue, moolah & TRP's for these shows but atleast then why not make a proper pretence of the importance of these 'votes'? Either the public is being made a fool or there is something that I seem to be overlooking.