Reasons.

1. The exact same format every year no improvements, no change of the stage.

2. The judges. Are they really big names tbh? Compare there judges to the X Factor's. Keeping Alesha, I'm not a hater but she's caused lots of viewers to stop watching.

3. Brucie & Tess - enough said. I've hardly seen many fans of them.

4. The pro's stuff - arguably the top 5 favourite pros except Vincent, Flavia and Erin aren't getting a celeb and will feature far less and now there's rumour's of quitting.

5. The clash against X Factor, X Factor is getting big changes, a rumoured bigger stage and new judging panel with rumoured guest judges and names such as Lady Gaga and Kylie have been mentioned and SCD get failed girlband singer Alesha on a non singing show.

6. The Z-elebs. No doubt this year's one will include someone from Hollyoaks, 2 people no one liked in Eastenders in about 2006 and have got no work since, someone's ex-girlfriend or ex-wife and someone who can't dance from GMTV and based on who hasn't done a reality show from GMTV it'll be Lorraine Kelly. :yawn:

I used to love SCD and I loved Chris last year but atm I don't wanna watch it and I don't know why the producer's making all these choices. Listen to what the viewers are saying.

Te line up better be bloody good, because at the moment I doubt i'll bother - X Factor this year

Matt and Ian go........i go......to another channel.... ........simple as......

Ian and Brian were my favourites - not really bothered about the series now..... I don't like X-Factor, but, I almost feel like watching it in protest!!!

It has been losing viewers for some time now. These changes are presumably an attempt to bring new viewers in, but I don't see it myself. The producers have lost sight of what made the show popular to start with (assuming they ever knew). The more they try to make it like X Factor, the worse it will get. If you like X Factor, you watch X Factor. You don't watch a show on BBC1 which is a bit more like X Factor than it used to be.

Well with those dancers going i won't be watching this year..

They have just ruined it...

I totally agree!

It is unbelievable that in order to do this they have taken (in JMHO) the five best things about the show ie Matt, Ian, Brian, Lilia and Darren. Not just my and many others favourite professionals but also the best teachers and , choreographers, the most fun and interesting to watch dance and listen talk in interviews, the five professionals that seem to engage best with their celebrities and bring out the best in them no matter what their level of dance may be...in truth the five people I most enjoy watching.

It's a crazy, crazy, crazy, crazy decision...

It's almost like the X factor producers made this decision - taking the five best and most popular professionals and 'demoting them'. How can anyone have possibly thought this was a good idea?

you know i think SCD may have actually died this year

It such a shame. Whilst I think its important to keep the show fresh, the BBC seem really out of tune with what its is and isn't about the show that the people like.

They really need to accept that SCD and Xfactor are very different and different people watch them for different reasons. They should exploit the differences rather than this obesession with targeting the yoof market which seems to alienate quite a lot of the dedicated fans.

They should be concentrating on getting top notch celebs rather than messing with the really successful aspects of the show.

and it will just lose more.

I used to be a big fan, but last year was just pants - the ghastly Bruce, awful hosting, pointless soap stars no one had ever heard of, hideous costumes, off key singers, useless 'guest artists' and totally naff, end of pier production.

I'm not sure I could ever sit through it again. I much prefer the American version.

It must be part of an attempt to kill the show.
Ratings will sink like a stone in a pond, justifying the end without too much fuzz.
To be replaced by the umpteenth search for a musical star.
How else can you explain this ridiculous move?

Let them do a show about the sarch for some competent BBC managers: "The Quest for Sanity".

I Love the way some people on here are so quick to slam any decisions on the show...... How do you know it wont turn out to be a good thing.
Already we get all this talk of " I wont watch" or "lets get a petition together" or accusations of trying to compete with X factor. It's all Bull *** , its only a TV show trying to entertain, no TV show is ever going to please everybody, so if you dont want to watch it then goodbye, At least give it a chance and see the changes in context before you decide if it is good or not.
I'm on the fence, but happy to give it a go before i decide to watch the whole series or not

You are absolutely right, they will never please everybody, but I think its fair to say that Ian and Moatthew consistently top popularity polls and are very well loved by a great many (but certainly not all) of the shows fans. Its natural that people are going to be disappointed that they won't have the same role.

Considering they are pitched prime time against the X Factor (by their own admission), then I would think accusations of trying to compete with the X factor are completely valid.

I will watch it and no doubt thoroughly enjoy the show, but that doesnt mean that I am not entitled to be reticent about being excited about the changes that they have made....

Agreed. I'm fortunate in that my 4 favourite pros are still in, but I'll miss the ones who have been sidelined! And I'm wary that the pro dance troupe will be detrimental to the chances of seeing the competing pros demonstrate their skills, which is the whole reason I watch - if we don't get a V&F AT or J&O Rumba, for example, I'll not be happy!

The show very probably only has another couple of years left in it, so it really should have been the time where the BBC accept that the people who watch the X Factor watch it because that's the type of show that audience likes, and that audience will never swap the X Factor for Strictly. Strictly does not have the same target audience as the X Factor, and trying to turn it into a show that does is just sealing its fate...

Agreed. Why try to compete with something that clearly has a different target audience??? It's not going to work

I suspect people will tune in for the first few weeks just to see if and how the changes work so it'll be imperative for the Beeb to get it right from the start, otherwise it's curtains.

I think that's true. It'll also depend on how the new pros and this years celebs do too. To a certain extent Chris Hollins saved last from being a complete bust, whether you like him or not his journey (yes I used the 'j' word) kept a lot of viewers watching.

I agree, but they are 2 completely different shows, the only thing they have in common is that they are both on at the same time on a saturday night.... I just dont get all this constant comparisons.... Maybe the BBC will reschedule to a friday night to avoid a clash, but then people would moan that they are then forced to watch X factor cos there is nothing on the BBC to compete. Personally i detest X factor and it quite clearly just there as a vehicle to make more money for Simon Cowell and nothing to do with learning a skill, to get to the finals on x factor you have to already know how to sing , so how does that compare with learning a new skill altogether. If they took dancers onto X factor and made them try to be singers then there would be more to compare

I'm only sad about Ian - not bothered about the others, and my faves are still coming back for hopefully a better celeb than they got last year so I'm just going to wait and see. Whatever happens though it'll be better than X-Factor any day - sick to death of it.

it's a shame none of the producers of the show read these message boards. We always have lots of sensible suggestions on how to improve the show.

I'm very sorry Brian is going, and Matt.....and Lilia, who does the best choreography IMO of all the pros

The only thing I agree with is going down to 14 couples.

I agree with the other posters who are saying our once great show is slowly going down the tubes

I seem to remember this same question last year when Arlene was replaced.

I don't think the ratings did too badly.

I give it this year and one more series next year probably then it will go. If things do badly this year I can see Darcy Bussell coming in next year as a fifth permanent judge to save it.

The trouble is partly the BEEB is full of politics between those who think SCD should be beefed up like the X Factor and those who suck up to Mark Thompson who aren't prepared to pay the kind of money they used to pay to attract better celebs.

SCD like a number of other shows on the BEEB is just a pawn in the game within the BEEB.

The question is when it goes what will replace it? My guess is something involving disco celeb dancing dumbed down even more with Vernon Kay and Tess or Alesha presenting. Bruce will be gone. The likes of Nigel Lythgoe, Louise Redknapp and someone like Fearne Cotton will probably be judging without any scoring. The format will be along the lines of "So you can think you can dance" which I didn't really like because it just seemed to be the same dancing every week and it was hard to relate to the contestants.

To save it??? Darcey as a permanent would consign Strictly to the dustbin for good!

I wonder if it will really affect the ratings or whether the ratings will be much the same but there will be even more forum posts from dissatisfied Strictly fans!

I think that's what happened with Alesha/Arlene last year - very few people stopped watching, they just complained (a lot). (Incidentally, have just watched Junior Apprentice and noticed Alan Sugar shares some grammatical "quirks" with Alesha - doesn't seem to have done him any harm! - sorry, that should be "don't seem to have...:" p)

I could see (not necessarily support) the BBC choosing Alesha because she had won the show, was very popular with viewers then and is young and lively. I CAN'T see why the BBC would remove Matt and Ian in place of Anton, for example - and Lilia, who is also hugely popular, in place of, say, Erin (note I'm NOT saying that I don't like Erin, just trying to see this from the BBC's point of view). But I just don't get it..
Am NOT looking forward to Strictly at all now.

Agreed. That was the worst change they made last year. She added nothing to the panel. I guess her jive was alright.

The choices they've made on who to keep for partnering and who to consign to just the pro dances is just weird. Are there people who actually dislike any of those 5 dancers? I know there are people who dislike Anton, Brendan, James...just off the top of my head. It does look like they've saved the more polarizing dancers for some kind of controversy.

I like to watch people learn how to dance. All the rest is soap opera bs.