Jaw-dropping earnings of Strictly spoiler website exposed as owner hits back

The earnings the man behind the notorious Strictly Spoiler website makes when the show is on the air have allegedly been revealed - and he is certainly making an impressive amount. Fans of the BBC's long-running reality competition Strictly Come Dancing had been delighted and frustrated by the spoiler website unofficially linked to the show.

As fans of Strictly know, the live show and results show are both filmed on Saturday nights when the series airs in the Autumn and Winter. However, the results show does not air until almost a full 24 hours after the live show has ended.

Through a series of contacts, photographer Dave Throp has been able to learn who is voted off the show after the judges vote on the results show - and publishes the spoiler online hours before the public are supposed to learn about the result in the recorded episode.

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Now it has been alleged that this is quite a lucrative project for Thorp - with a report suggesting he earns as much as £5,000 a month by simply revealing who loses the dance off ahead of time via his Strictly Spoiler website. It is suggested even on a bad month he can make around £3,000.

Thorp himself has previously hinted his spoiler enterprise is not cheap to run but has managed to monetise his website through advertising. He has also previously flagged that he holds competitions for Strictly fans that take a bite out of his earnings and also insists that he re-invests his earnings into his website.

A source told the MailOnline: "The money Thorp is making from giving away the Strictly results is ridiculous. He can sometimes earn up to £5,000 a month when the show is airing. On a bad month it's around £3,000, but that's not bad money for simply revealing a result and writing a bit of text around it."

The source continued: "He has someone involved on the show leaking him the results and Strictly have no clue who it is. They used to think it was audience members but Thorp still found out which celebrities had been voted out during the lockdown series, which was filmed at Elstree Studios without an audience."

The source went on to claim the BBC has made no attempt to try to stop him leaking the details of the judges vote every week when the show airs - and claims he has never received any legal demand to cease and desist.

Thorp has since responded to reports, suggesting that the claims of his earnings are exaggerated as he does not regularly receive that income on a monthly basis, nor throughout the year.

He said in a lengthy statement on his site: "Have there been months when I’ve hit the £5k or £3k being quoted. Yes, however these figures are also before operating expenses. My hosting during Strictly can easily hit £1k a month and then there are the regular competitions I run and many other operating expenses that go through the accounts I submit to HMRC and many of these expenses are incurred all year round including in the quiet season.

"However the headlines from the article suggest I’m making this kind of money all year round to which my response would be 'I wish'. I’d love to be making £60k a year but I’m not. My last tax return was made for the 23/24 tax year and reported a net profit of approximately £12k."

The photographer does also have a detailed Q&A section on his website where he addresses how much money he earns by spoiling the Strictly results. He explains that he makes his money via advertisements that appear on the basic website - and insists that making money out of spoilers was not his motive.

He writes: "Initially no this wasn’t being done for the money. For the first few years I did this traded at a loss and most of the revenue made from the various monetisation methods I have on the site was reinvested straight back into the site to pay for things like hosting costs which had spiralled from £3 a month to well over £1000 a month as well as marketing and competition prizes.

"In 2017 my personal circumstances changed and as a result I now have to take an income out of any revenue I receive and this is now like a full time job to me. Just not as well paid, highly stressful at times and with highly seasonal income that is only received over the course of 3 months."

He continues: "When I first started doing this it was not my intention to build a commercially successful site. That happened by accident! As far as the monetisation goes any revenue I make, where possible, is put back into the site and my competitions have gotten bigger and better each year with the largest prize I have ever given away paid out in 2021."

He adds: "I am registered self employed too and all earnings are appropriately declared to HMRC with Tax and National Insurance paid on them as appropriate and NI was also paid voluntarily by me many years even when I traded at a loss Site donations go directly towards my web hosting costs which have sky rocketed as I’ve had to deploy increasingly complicated and costly hosting solutions in order to keep the site up due to the demands placed on it at peak times when the spoiler comes in."

Thorp has also vowed to issue a full response to the MailOnline's claims via his website very soon.

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