Dancing With The Stars Season 26 Week One Down Over 40% From Last Year’s Premiere
I was afraid of this. From Variety, here are some stats on last night’s ratings. Be sure to read more at the link. My parents always use to say either go all the way with something or not at all. Is this the case for a short season? Even still, 8+ million viewers is still ok, but is it enough?
“Dancing with the Stars” hit a new demo low for a regular episode on Monday with the ABC competition series debuting its all-athletes edition.
Airing from 8-10 p.m, “Dancing With the Stars” averaged a 1.2 rating in adults 18-49 and 8.5 million viewers. That is down over 40% in the demo from the show’s premiere last spring premiere and approximately 30% in total viewers. The ABC series also lost to “The Voice” over its two-hour broadcast, with the NBC series holding steady for the week with a 1.6 and 8.7 million viewers.
Later on ABC, “The Crossing” (0.5, 3.8 million) was also down in the demo.
After “The Voice,” “Good Girls” (0.9, 4.2 million) was steady.
I still say they should have done an All Star mini season with no winners, only runners up. They already would have basic knowledge of dance. The audience would remember them. And for 4 weeks, a lot of them would do the show.
Not surprising. If I wasn’t looking for it, I wouldn’t even know it was on. I’ve never seen so little publicity for a season. And with only four weeks many may not even bother.
That’s low. The UK version gets 10 million and it has a fifth of the population of the US….
I agree 110% with your parents statement! I do fear for this shows survival after this stunt, once you allow your audience to drift away, for any reason (but REALLY stupid, if at your own hand…), it’s nearly impossible to recover! I live for this show and I’m so darned mad they did this! Like I said weeks ago, if they’d done a full season with just the pro’s even (or with this current cast), they’d at least have some consistency. 4 weeks is hardly worth investing in and I’m sure many people feel that way, hence the low ratings. This new show runner certainly doesn’t seem as if he wants to keep his job with hair-brained ideas such as this one! This may be the nail in the coffin, I hope not but 40% is NOT a small loss…and also a reason I PRAY they don’t do DWTS, Jr. If they resort to that next season (or ever), I think it will entirely be over for this show!!! SO sad…
Honestly I think at this point the show could benefit from being taking off the schedule for a few seasons and then returning as maybe a once a year summer show with fewer contestants, new pros and judges and the production really dialed back to the first few seasons level. Make it what it once used to be, a celebrity ballroom dance competition instead of a SPECTACLE!! week after week.
I still like the show, but it’s inevitable that viewer fatigue has set in after 26 seasons.
The powers that be could not be do stupid as to not recognize that people obviously don’t like a 4 week season. Experiment failed. I think they thought they could save some money due to the outrageous cost of IDOL, but that e periment failed too. IDOL is doing terrible in the ratings. And if TPTB haven’t gotten it, listen up folks, you failed. Regroup and send my royalty check later…lol. DWTS was fine just the way it was. Okay, back to live Lynne, vent over. Someone told me once TPTB read the blog so thought I’d give them some advice.
That should have been nice Lynne, sorry.
Hopefully abc takes this as a sign to get rid of Idol or worse case scenario they’ll think the low ratings are because the fam isn’t on and bring them all back *shuddering*
As I said before I forgot to watch it because of so little coverage, I didn’t even see a commercial. In the past the local ABC station hyped it but not this time. It’s almost as if DWTS wants to be cancelled.
Maybe it would’ve been better to NOT have had a spring season at all, and invest a little more money into the upcoming fall season
I kinda agree that after 25 seasons, there just might, definitely, be some ‘viewer fatigue’ amongst even the most die hard fans. I, myself, didn’t watch the whole premiere cause I wasn’t feeling well; but honestly, I haven’t missed a premiere show since DWTS began it’s very 1st season. I’ve missed other weekly shows but I never allowed myself to miss a premiere episode. And even though I caught up on the dances this week, I’m not feeling this season-not the contestants, not too many of the pros, certainly not the next 3 wks that will just fly by like nothing? I don’t even feel like it’s a real season LOL
Will this first week’s low ratings, or any subsequent low ratings, affect the future of the show though? I’m not so sure-the producers knew the risks going into this short season. They knew that a lot of their viewers might not bother to tune for only a month of dancing but I think they also figured a month of dancing was better than nothing. Better than having NO spring season I guess. In my opinion, there will, FOR SURE, be a fall season-with the whole Chmerkovskiy clan in tow???????????? Will there be a Spring season next yr? Maybe they’ll replace it with the junior version they held auditions for or maybe they’ll just cut down DWTS to once a yr next yr? Will we see another short 4 wk mini season again after this? That might be debatable LOL
Personally, this is the first time since season 5 I have not watched a premiere. Its also the first time in a long time I didn’t vote. For me, the 4 weeks was a non-starter. I’ll watch the dances on youtube and read here, but I just can’t get invested or excited about the season. The journey and the progress of people like Drew or David is just as important to me as good dancing. I get why they had to do 4 weeks, but I sadly don’t care about this season.
I don’t think this season’s ratings can be legitimately compared to other seasons. The biggest factor is that it’s starting what? A month later than normal? That practically makes it a summer time show and the ratings for summer shows are judged differently. Starting in March makes a huge difference than the very end of april. Right now it’s staying light later and people are outside – and they didn’t get hooked on DWTS while it was still winter-ish outside. I know I’m still outside when primetime starts and that was definitely not the case a month ago.
Then there’s the athletes concept. I’m liking it so far, but I can guess that many don’t.
DWTS is famous for being the most politically straight-up-the-middle show on television. The idea that you could take the arguably most divisive Olympian of the most divisive games, Adam Rippon, who substituted attacks on the administration for results on the ice, and have a third of your audience bail is a surprise to exactly whom? (NBC had offered Rippon an Olympic commentary gig which evaporated in a sea of backlash before he could damage the NBC brand.) The producers of DWTS had a choice, go for ratings with accomplished, respected, athletes or try to make a statement, and they chose the later and went with Rippon, the most self-referential, and least accomplished, male athlete to ever appear on the program and disliked by half the people who know who he is. Good bye audience. They better figure this one out, because they have one remaining chance to save the franchise. If the ratings continue in free-fall next season, it will be the last season. Get woke, go broke.
I agree PHeidi that a month later than normal and pushing it into nicer weather could interfere with people wanting to be outside since it stay lighter out. Today has been 80 degrees here and yesterday in the mid 70’s and everyone is doing outside activities.
I am also liking the athletes season also. I know I’ll be enjoying the dances until the end no matter who takes the MBT home. It’s all good.
Imop I think if the four week format doesn’t result in a hot mess overall the network may choose to keep it permanently. It would be cheaper to produce and the field of contestants may be broader due to a lesser time commitment. The sense of urgency created by a shorter format could stimulate new younger viewers. I for one feel the 10 week show got a bit drawn out and boring at times. It’s a catch 22 for the pros though, more opportunity to pursue work outside of dwts if said work exists.
Variety has one way to look at ratings, but for DWTS it may not be truly expressing what is meaningful for the show.
The 18-49 y/o demographic is not the core audience here. I saw those scores on Tues and thought “not too bad.”
Yes, am missing the full season and would have really liked the shortened version to go 5 wks, but ok.
Still hopeful the ratings will go up again in the fall.*
*They do need to do reg promotional spots/hype, tho.
Blaming a ratings fail on an Olympian who doesn’t care for the current administration and who exercises his first amendment right to say so – in the least controversial way, like, ever – is a true example of someone who can’t see past their own bias. I got news for you sweetheart – more people agree with Adam than disagree with him.
More news for you – me, a flaming liberal (unlike you, the snowflake), liked Tom Delay and Rick Perry on DWTS and had some sympathy for Bristol Palin. If DWTS can handle the felon, the idiot and unwed mother (respectively), they can certainly handle Adam. After all, not everyone is as close minded and as idiotic as you, TSBench. Now get the fuck off this site with your bigoted pov.
Jesus, to think there are people who think Tonya ISN’T the most controvertial pick in DWTS history. What is so different about Adam? Hmmmmm…..let me think…..
I am a west coast viewer, so to not be able to have a vote count for week 1 is turn off for me.Not sure if others felt that way and that is another reason for the lower ratings.
Thanks for the great job Pure DWTS