I'm seriously starting to believe I must have deamt the third 'Virile VW' speech...Ray and Kenny are the two I've found but it isn't Mark (Ramps OR Foster), Austin, Matt (Dawson or Di Angelo), or anyone from SCD6...

*Stares into the abyss of despair*

Never mind. I'm sure she was thinking it when she watched Austin even if she didn't say it.

The Sun say the finer points of Alesha's deal is being sorted out, and could be announced today as the new judge of SCD ...

http://www.thesun.co.uk/sol/homepage...e-Dancing.html

The BBC are just intent on ruining the show, quite clearly. Can't believe Alesha would take the position, and hope this doesn't mean she is cancelling her tour, which I have tickets for!

this really is dumbing down the show. A once show about dancing becomes a popularity contest. Nail . Coffin.

I quite agree - what a ridiculous move by the BBC.

Alesha Dixon as a judge is to do with ratings and competing with The X Factor. X Factor has two younger judges - Danni Minogue and Cheryl Cole - and SCD has to compete with that so out goes Arlene, in comes Alesha.

Whether or not you agree with that move or think it makes sense, well, that's open to debate! But the BBC want to win the SCD vs X Factor ratings war. It's possible Arlene's removal will result in the other three main judges getting the boot in the next few years. If they can get rid of her, they can get rid of the others!

So the BBC are naive enough to think that the majority of younger viewers are going to tune into SCD because Alesha Dixon is on it???? That really is incredibly stupid - SCD was doing fine in the ratings and regularly beat X factor anyway so why did they need to change it? I really hope it back fires and the ratings drop substantially, then perhaps they might begin to appreciate that not everyone in the country is aged 18 - 25!

Yep, I suspect that's the only reason she's been hired. She's not a pro-dancer or choreographer, she doesn't have years of dance experience - she's a pop singer - so she's been hired to boost ratings, appeal to younger people that might buy her records and albums. It does make a bit of a mockery of the show, why should the contestants take her comments seriously? Okay, she did win SCD and all credit to her, but she's not a ballroom dance pro. She hasn't dedicated her working life to ballroom dancing and/or dance choreography. The other judges have.

The problem isn't with the BBC bringing in a younger judge, although I'm not impressed with the ageism in that decision - if Arlene needs to be replaced with someone younger and sexier, then so does Len!

The main problem is with the BBC bringing in a judge who is known to have very little dance experience. The new judge should be a dancer or choreographer, someone like Carrie Ann Inaba on Dancing with the Stars.

its offical haha

ALESHA TO JOIN STRICTLY COME DANCING
We're delighted to announce that Alesha Dixon has been asked by the BBC to be part of the Strictly Come Dancing Judging panel in the autumn.

She will be appearing live on BBC1 for 16 weeks every Saturday night! Unfortunately, this means Alesha will have to reschedule three of her autumn tour dates in Lincoln, Southampton and Brighton due to her commitments to the show.

Strictly Come Dancing is very close to Alesha’s heart after winning the show in 2007 and hopes that her amazing fans understand that this is an unmissable opportunity.

Alesha says "I'm so sorry to all my fans for having to change some of my dates. I'm really looking forward to playing live. I can’t wait for the tour to start as I have been working so hard for a long time to achieve my dream of my first solo tour. I hope everyone can understand due to the emotional connection I have with the show, it was an exciting opportunity I could not turn down."

Dates Changed

November
Mon 16th - LINCOLN ENGINE SHED - 0844 888 8766 (old date 31st Oct)
Tues 17th - SOUTHAMPTON GUILDHALL - 023 8063 2601 (old date 24th Oct)
Thu 19th - BRIGHTON DOME - 01273 709 709 (old date 7th Nov)

Tickets purchased for the original dates will remain valid.







ALESHA LIVE

OCTOBER
TUES 20TH - NOTTINGHAM ROYAL CENTRE - 0115 989 5555
WEDS 21ST - READING HEXAGON - 0118 960 6060
FRI 23RD - CARDIFF ST DAVID’S - 029 2087 8444
MON 26TH - LIVERPOOL PHILHARMONIC - 0151 709 3789
TUES 27TH - GLASGOW ABC - 0844 499 9990
WEDS 28TH - NEWCASTLE CITY HALL - 0191 261 2606
FRI 30TH - MANCHESTER APOLLO - 0844 477 7677
NOVEMBER
MON 2ND - CAMBRIDGE CORN EXCHANGE - 01223 357 851
TUES 3RD - BIRMINGHAM SYMPHONY HALL - 0121 780 3333
WEDS 4TH - BRISTOL COLSTON HALL - 0117 922 3686
FRI 6TH - FOLKESTONE LEAS CLIFF HALL - 0844 847 1776
MON 9TH - IPSWICH REGENT - 01473 433 100
TUES 10TH - SOUTHEND CLIFFS PAVILION - 01702 351 135
THURS 12TH - LONDON SHEPHERDS BUSH EMPIRE - 0844 477 2000

Tickets are available right now from www.aleshadixon.co.uk

i got send this by alesha dixon website im member x

The removal of Arlene Phillips may resonate with former newsreader Selina Scott. She is convinced British tv actively removes woman from tv presenting due to their age.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/news...imination.html

Scott received a large payoff from Ch 5 after they removed her from presenting the news.


http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/wire/4281

She was still under contract and she contested their decision and won. British tv isn't so fond of older women.

Absolutely, I have no problem with them changing the judging panel per se BUT the person coming in should be someone who has credible dance experience and will be unbiased towards the Pro dancers. Also, it angers me that only Arlene is being replaced - talk about ageism and sexism!

Sure is. I guess if Arlene wasn't under contract to appear in the new series of SCD she'll have to accept it. I don't think she can do a 'Selina Scott' and accuse the BBC of age discrimination. It's a pity she has been removed to pander to ratings. Whatever your opinion of Arlene, she is a professional dance choregrapher and is is far more qualified to judge SCD dancers than Alesha 'loud laugh' Dixon!

I agree the SCD has to compete against X-Factor (it always has), but I doubt age has anything to do with Alesha replacing Arlene.

I think people are being a bit unfair to Alesha as judging by the polls, she is probably the most popular SCD contestant so far - and that's got to be one good reason for choosing her.

The Press Release does say Alesha will be judging performance rather than technique and we've often moaned on here that there is a difference between a good 'artist' performance and a good 'technical' performance. Well, now we've got a judge for that.

For those of you who have raised Ruthie Henshall on DOI, I'd say I understand what you are saying, but the main reason that Ruthie was so unpopular was she showed blatant favouritism towards less able celebs, but that doesn't mean the idea of someone judging performance is wrong - just that Ruthie was a bad choice!

I don't have a problem with that role for Alesha - we all know how down to earth she is and I'd say let's give the woman a chance!

I would have preferred any new judge to have a ballroom/Latin background, but clearly that's not going to happen.

It is the old argument about whether SCD is a dancing competition or an entertainment show and as usual the answer is both.

Aliesha is 'too nice'

We already had people judging performance. Craig, Arlene and Bruno were all weighted towards performance rather than technique. We don't need someone to be 100% performance and 0% technique.

plus thats the audiences part. We enjoy a good performance even if technicaly it is crap and we get the chance to save them

Personally I think Arlene has been moved side ways to the One Show because she couldn't keep her mouth shut to the media last year - we didn't like it and I doubt if the BBC did either.

As others have said I am not a huge fan of Arlene but to push her out like this is awful. We have doddery old Brucie who is not funny - in fact now very embarrassing and old Len who both keep their jobs and she is shunted out of the show. Blatant discrimination against the older woman losing her and bringing in a younger sexy person.

At least with the X Factor it was Sharon's decision to go.

And I am someone who really likes Alesha!

You've summed up my feelings exactly.

I like Mariella Frostrup's opinion column in the Mail on the subject:

Autocuties, perky bosoms and why TV bosses despise older women

It's sexist AND ageist and I think it's absolutely disgusting!

Have any of the old men gone? No, even Bruce is still there as far we know (they'll be rolling him out soon!!) but no the older woman has to go! I'm absolutely spitting feathers about this and I'm completely surprised that the BBC can get away with this blatantly ageist behaviour - they'd probably get off with the sexist angle as they're replacing her with another woman

Alesha is going to sit there smiling, looking pretty and giving everyone high scores. And I swear is she does that irritating laugh I'm going to be switching over the the X Factor and I've been a HUGE Strictly fan since the first series.

Alesha would have been much better in some kind of presenting role but I don't know what as I like Tess and Claudia. Maybe a roving reporter who's segment could have been shown in the second programme?

But then again, why have her at all? The BBC seem to be having some love affair with her at the moment for some strange reason IMO Alesha isn't all that. She was a great contestant but I don't see why she has to become part of the fixtures and fittings of the show? Bruce's influence maybe??

Did we not have enough of Ms Dixon during her dancing stint? Although I did like her on the show I'm just not sure we really want her critique of 'Ohh yes I remember it was ..... this, or it was that, blah, blah,blah. She was a novice 2 years ago so what makes her in a position to judge, more so than Mark Ramprakash, Natasha Kaplinsky and the like?

I'm more tired with Revel-Horwood's 'dahhling lovvie' ramblings and Len and Bruno, trying to do 2 jobs at once. Would it not have been better to get rid of one of them, then they could dedicate their judging to one side of the atlantic. Although I didn't like Arlene's way with dear old John Sargeant, it's very age and sexist to get rid of her.

Talking of Selina Scott, I'd rather have her on the panel.

Just hope Darcey Bussell is not similar to the 'Dancing on ice' show judge Ruthie Henshall. She's a dancer but she really is no judge.

It's not inherently ageist to replace an older person with a younger one. Compared to most countries version's panels ours is geriatric. Maybe it was ageist that there weren't more people under bus pass age on it in the first place?

It seems more likely that, after the public acted like such screeching idiots over John Sergeant last year, leading to him quitting, that they want to soften up the judging panel a little to avoid everyone giving themselves quite so many anneyurisms whilst watching.

(Personally I think replacing Arlene with Alesha is a dumb idea but not for the reason of her age)

Extremely disappointed with this. I have nothing against Alesha, and it could be good that there's someone on the pannel who can empathise with the contestants, but she isn't qualified to say anything technical and can only say, "yeah, good effort." And what use is that?

Arlene may have taken forthright to new levels but she was honest, didn't overmark any of her 'favourites', and possibly scored the most realistically of all four judges.

And she usually gave helpful things for people to work on. How the heck can Alesha do that with any credibility?