800,000 Fans Vote For Akademi Fantasia
By Rosli Abidin Yahya

Bandar Seri Begawan - More than 800,000 people from Brunei Darussalam have sent short message services (SMS) to vote for their favourite contestants at the Akademi Fantasia, an entertainment programme that has taken Brunei and Malaysia by storm.

The weekly programme, in its second year, was made spicier when votes from Bruneian fans were also counted by the entertainment producer.

Reliable sources said the 800,000 votes cost Bruneian fans $800,000 since a SMS was charged $1.00

"Around 40 cents or $320,000 went to the organising television channel so far while the rest was divided between two Brunei companies which participated in organising the event.

"Actually the amount is more as some Bruneians used Malaysian prepaid telephone lines to place their votes," said reliable sources.

The programme is set to undergo its climax this Saturday night with the final concert to be held by the students at the Putra Stadium, Bukit Jalil in Selangor. Some Bruneian fans have arranged their flights and tickets to witness the finals. Linda Nanuwil from Sabah will join the finals after fans voted for her last Sunday.

Linda won the right to join Zahid, Bob, Kaer, Adam and Farah after beating Edlin, Fitri, Anding, Zarina, Nurul and Mas, contestants who were booted out by fans in the preliminaries.

The concert began on June 12 with Edlin being the first student to bow out and the preliminaries ended last Saturday with Mas from Tawau being discarded by fans. -- Courtesy of Borneo Bulletin

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