Hi Tammy I agree with you on major flaws however I think you have missed the point re listens. The number of listens has nothing to do with judgements. It is the number of times people whilst not judging have decided to listen to your song. It stands to reason that the top twenty songs get a lot of attention during finals therefore more listens.

My conspiracy theory relates to that point. I believe that during finals people constantly check positions and vote tactically according to a song's position. They will vote favouring lower placed songs against songs they want to drop in position and then keep adjusting their votes accordingly preventing any one song climbing against their own.

To do this they must constantly keep looking at chart positions and this will register as a play.

http://www.soundclick.com/bands/songInfo.cfm?bandID=687727&songID=5238055