Dancing with the Stars Cut to One Night for the Upcoming Fall Season
Well, what do you all think of this. I’m thinking it’s worth a shot. According to Vulture.com:
Fourth-place ABC will radically overhaul its lineup next fall: It’s reducingDancing with the Stars to a single night, launching a Tuesday lineup in which every show is new (anchored by Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D) and giving Rebel Wilson’s Super Fun Night the timeslot following Modern Family. Overall, the Alphabet is futzing with at least one timeslot on five of six nights of its Sunday through Friday schedule, leaving only Mondays untouched. And despite giving Suburgatory a third season order, the network has opted to leave the show off its fall lineup completely. Let’s take a quick look at the changes (full analysis to come later today).
Mondays are stable, but the big shift is that DWTS will now we cut back to just one night per week, with no results show. That’s how the show was launched during its first summer season, and perhaps ABC is hoping that will boost its flagging ratings.
The Hollywood Reporter weighed in with this:
With Dancing With the Stars’ ratings glory days behind it — this latest cycle is averaging a 2.6 rating among adults 18-49 — ABC is condensing the series into one two-hour episode airing every Monday. The combination of the performance and results show takes the series off of Tuesday night for the first time in years. Still, Dancing With the Stars is only a shade behind American Idol in total viewers, and its performance show ranks among TV’s top 10 most-watched broadcasts. What remains to be seen is whether ABC will continue to air two cycles a season.
ETA: Oh for f*#ks sake, ENOUGH WITH THE YOUNGER VIEWERS!! This is one of those instances where a show runner or exec is blind to their own flaws. You’ve been making this grab for how long and it’s not working!! From E! News, more info on the one night idea. It starts off so well and then goes to crap in the last paragraph:
It’s hard to imagine a world where Dancing With the Stars is on only one night a week, but in the fall, we’ll be living in it.
ABC boss Paul Lee told reporters today that the move makes room for one of the most highly anticipated new series of the season: Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., which air on Tuesday nights. And it will give the show a chance to grab a younger audience.
“We want to focus it in. We’re planning to do two seasons and we think that by taking the results show and building it in the two-hour block from 8 to 10 on Monday night, we can really build a sense of occasion to that and drive viewership to Monday night,” Lee said. “And we have very, very strong development this year, so this allows us to put S.H.I.E.L.D. in at 8 on Tuesdays, which we think is the perfect place for that show. So it’s a one-two punch for us.”
The other move ABC is making to hopefully bring back more viewers to DWTS is skewering it more toward a younger audience.
“One of the critical things each cycle is to make sure we nail the casting,” he said. “You saw us aging down Bachelor this year with some spectacular casting. So certainly we’re going to make sure as we focus on Monday, we focus as well on casting that will help us age it down.”
“Age it down” all you like, just don’t hire from the company pool. Grrrr….he sounds sooo positive about the performance show, like they’re going to invest in it. More bull from a guy trained in bull.
