Official: Dancing With The Stars Season 18 To Premiere March 17th!!
The premiere date for Dancing With The Stars Season 18 was just announced at the Television Critics Association Winter 2014 Press Tour. Here is a tweet from TV Guide. Set your calendars for March 17th!!
Other ABC premiere dates: #DWTS on Monday, March 17 at 8/7c and #TheBlackBox on Thursday, April 24 at 10/9c. #TCA14
ETA: Other tweets with info that took place:
From TVGuide Canada:
“We’re going to continue to work with Maks” on #DWTS, but Paul Lee won’t say anything more #TCA14
Hmmm, I wonder if that means he will judge again? I thought he did a great job the last time. I wouldn’t mind seeing him doing it again. Though not sure I want him to judge full time?
From TVGuide:
Lee: We were pleased with #DWTS on one night. It opened up Tuesdays for us. #TCA14
What do you think of this news? I think it’s for the best and I ended up liking it more.
ETA2: Below is a take from ABC MediaNet. Note how it mentions there will be 12 celebs again:
“DANCING WITH THE STARS” (Monday, March 17, 8:00-10:00 p.m., ET)
“Dancing With the Stars” returns for its 18th season with an all-new celebrity cast. The competition will feature twelve celebrities who will brave the dance floor for the very first time. Each week, these celebrities will leave their comfort zones and endure hours of grueling rehearsals to master technical choreography and entertaining performances. In the end, only one star will rise above the rest to be crowned champion and win the coveted mirror-ball trophy.
Hosted by Emmy® Award-winning Tom Bergeron (“America’s Funniest Home Videos”) and Brooke Burke-Charvet (“Dancing with the Stars” Season 7 Champion), “Dancing with the Stars” is the hit series in which celebrities perform choreographed dance routines which are judged by renowned ballroom judge Len Goodman and dancer/choreographers Bruno Tonioli and Carrie Ann Inaba.
“Dancing with the Stars” is produced by BBC Worldwide Productions. Conrad Green, Ashley Edens-Shaffer and Joe Sungkur are executive producers. Alex Rudzinski directs.
ETA3: Below is more from E Online;
Despite some shocking eliminations throughout DWTS’ 17th season, Lee revealed that the network is pleased with the new one-night format and it helped with the series’ ratings. “It actually grew. We didn’t quite end the season as high, but the season itself was higher.”
The ABC president explained that season 18 will also follow the one-night trend. “We want to find ways to turn that up just a little bit. We were pleased with how it worked for us,” he said.
Fans were thrilled to see a mini-shake up on the judges’ panel when former professional dancer Max Chmerkovskiy filled in for head judge, Len Goodman, for an episode. Lee agreed that he loved Max’s creative input and there’s a possibility that we could be seeing the hunky Ukranian back with a paddle in his hand. “We thought Max did a fabulous job and we’re going to continue working with him in the future. Nothing to announce now, but we will keep working with him,” he said.
