Why do the ratings bother you, it's not your worry, even if they drop a million viewers it will still be the most watched show on BBC, and to compare it with Big Brother is just dumb, BB has died because it has turned into a freak show inhabited by talentless wannabee's,... Just watch the show or dont but please spare us the " concern for the ratings" I couldn't give a hoot how many people watch it as long as i enjoy watching it..

I was merely making a point that, like BB, Stricly's constant chasing of the ratings may mark its downfall. It will be the most watched show on the beeb this Autumn. In fact as soon as September comes along Strictly seems to dominate the scheduling. The beeb puts way too much emphasis on the show considering they seem to be completely out of touch with what the loyal fans wants.

I agree! SCD seems to want to appeal to a younger and younger audience, hence the appointment of Alesha and the fact that they want younger and younger dancers. What they seem to forget is that this show has built its success on being family entertainment. Which means that young kids love it as much as their great grandmas!

Ratings are very important because even if a show is successful, continually losing ratings will eventually bring about its downfall.

BTW, bit of a sidetrack but my little nephew aged 6 saw Brucie in a shop a while back and dadada'd the theme tune to him. It seems Brucie completely ignored him. So that's one less fan this year

I wondered if they are trying to take an approach that is similar to DWTS. The pros are rotated for seasons and new pros brought in. Regular pros are sidelined for a season and then come back. I wonder if they gave them the dance troupe option as a way of keeping them but letting a new pro come and be partnered with a celebrity.

I believe the reason DWTS does it this way do it is not because the new pros are better dancers but because a new pro is a new storyline. How will they do, how will the partnership be, will they succeed, will they fail, can they teach, will they bring new routines, a new personality to the dance floor and the VT? You are watching the pros journey as much as the celeb even if voting for the celeb. It can make for interesting watching. They took a risk bringing Brian and Kristina. As I recall there was a lot of resistance, especially worry abou tthe choreo.

I have noticed that when a pro takes a season off DWTS and then comes back they seem to be more invigorated and come back with new choreo. Or if they had a series of duffers and then they get a great celeb - that pro just comes alive but the dancing skill was always the same. I think of Ola when she was at the bottom of a poll last year and she steadily moved up with her partnership with Chris.

But, having said that I can understand the "don't fix it if ain't broke" mantra, keeping the same format, same pros year after year because they are the best and the formula works especially for those loyal fans. In a perfect entertainment world ratings wouldn't matter, bringing in new viewers and especially younger viewers interested in ballroom wouldn't matter and so on. I do think it will be interesting to see if there is a big boycott of the show and ratings go down, if there are new viewers interested because the BBC had the courage to make changes (even if disapproved by the majority of the fans as not the way to go) or whether ratings won't be affected.

I agree with this. In fact, I think giving a set of professionals the pro dances will mean we get to see some even better stuff from them than we have already.

But, as you said - the real question for me is 'Why not Anton ?' I just cannot understand it. He is poor at Latin and if the reason they are keeping him is because someone at SCD thinks he's funny and has 'personality', I wish that person would realise that most viewers do not share that view.

Maybe they don't want Anton dragging down their *all new* pro dance-troupe dances

There was outrage when Nicole was dropped.

Outrage !!! Hardly, didnt see very much tabloid coverage on that one.....

To be fair to Anton he's done some nice pro dances. He's fine when he dances within his limitations and concentrates on ballroom. The Anton/Erin and Vincent/Flavia dance where they changed partners was one of my favourites.

Nicole was dropped from series 6 (started 20th September 2008) and the feeling on DS was indeed outrage - but then you didn't start posting here until June 2009 and if IIRC you spent most of your time on the Alesha threads, so you'll have missed that.

Try if you can not to nitpick every post I make - it's becoming tiresome.

I think you will find i said Tabloid coverage, not DS !, sorry to nitpick but there is a difference

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I'm more than familiar with the English language - vocabulary, definitions, connotations, comprehension and perhaps most importantly spelling and grammar.

Outrage is outrage - whatever the media - but God forbid that I should nitpick.

Best get your hard hat on and maybe a chest plate - methinks you will need to deflect many an arrow directed towards your heroine in the coming season.

Live with it - everyone is entitled to an opinion.including you and me.

/me hears the hollow crackle of empty Heroes wrappers bouncing off the screen...

Some dancers were more central to the success of the show than others. I am sure you know that really...

And some of those very dancers are still on the show this year as well, let's not just assume the BBC managed to axe all the pivotal dancers - they at least managed to realise the value of some of the ones they have kept!

How dare you tell people to 'Get over it'. These passionate people are probably more SCD fans than you ever are or will be. This is a free country and people have a perfect right to have an opinion.

Yes, I am gutted that the lovely Ian Waite/Matthew Cutler are not competing in SCD anymore. Beggars belief, two of the most popular pros However, I am also gutted that the BBC think they can do what they like, not bothering to listen to any viewers/licence payers as their revenue is in the bag. They don't have to fight for their money like e.g. ITV. I call that arrogant.


I am a little confused at your use of this word. Definition: to cover or spread thickly, to use lavishly. Ummm, not sure how that is relevant.

[quote=StrictlyCracker;41404400]How dare you tell people to 'Get over it'. These passionate people are probably more SCD fans than you ever are or will be. This is a free country and people have a perfect right to have an opinion.

Yes, I am gutted that the lovely Ian Waite/Matthew Cutler are not competing in SCD anymore. Beggars belief, two of the most popular pros However, I am also gutted that the BBC think they can do what they like, not bothering to listen to any viewers/licence payers as their revenue is in the bag. They don't have to fight for their money like e.g. ITV. I call that arrogant.



Are you gutted because you think the BBC dont listen to all the viewers opinions or JUST Yours ? How would anyone ever make a TV show if they had to consult all 10 million viewers.... ITV have to fight for their money too, if they make crap programmes they dont get the advertisers, if they dont get the advertisers then they dont get the money to make the programmes.
I am actually quite sick of all this " I pay my license fee therfor i am entitled to a say in how the show is made" rubbish. NO you are not, you pay a license to watch the shows made by the BBC, and your financial contibution to SCD probably amounts to a fraction of a penny. Would you also like a say in how the news is presented ? or perhaps the plot in eastenders ? or wimbledon coverage ?

It is my understanding that the ratings of SCD were sagging last year. So when that happens producers feel a need for change. If the ratings had been higher than previous years I doubt they would have attempted any changes and taken the "don't fix it if ain't broke" route. If it is working the public will be tuning in. Ratings shouldn't matter on principal but in the television world they are everything. Of course why the ratings were low to begin with is up for a thousand different opinions and there are a thousand different ways to fix the show. Evidently X-factor is more compelling viewing than SCD for much of the public and the numbers are in.

The first half of the last series was the highest ratings Strictly have ever got for that part of the series. It just didn't compare to X Factor. The ratings did start to lag behind significantly after Blackpool, but I don't know that it would warrant a complete revamp (although on we've got thus far I wouldn't really call this one).

Interestingly both Dancing On Ice and Britain's Got Talent really suffered in their ratings compared to years past, with 1/10th of the coverage that got afforded to Strictly's woes. Maybe this demonstrates a diminished appetite for reality tv in the ITV audiences, and X Factor might suffer this year. Probably not, but it's worth a thought.

TBH I think all the shows you mention will always start with higher figures at the beginning when people want to see if there is anyone they want to connect with and support, it really is the quality of the celebs, or contestants in x factor's case, as to whether they continue watching or switch off. The difficult part for these shows is the second half and trying to hold the viewers attention, they can only hope the choice of contestants is good and that they can keep us hooked. it must get harder as christmas approaches and people start getting involved in xmas shopping, parties etc and other distractions, if there is nobody on screen that anybody really cares about then they will switch off. The key then is the celebs, changing the pro's really doesnt make much difference, in fact bringing in new pros is a good thing to do to allow more new faces for people to connect with.
A good example might be The Apprentice, popular show but comes back every year with new faces, only old grummpy sugar is the real constant factor,

Personally I think that is what they are trying to do. New pros bring a new personality in the training room to connect with the celebs and then it is brought out onto the dance floor for the fans to connect to. Now it may not work at all but someone new always adds an interest factor with a rookie newbie learning the ropes. I remember the interest in Brian when he first came on board. How would he do, how will he work his celeb, can he teach, what will the choreography be like, how will he do alongside of established pros both with his celebrity and the pro dances. He certainly was not better than any of the other pros but he brought something new and another pro/celeb partnership that fans could connect with as Yelsel says.

It is too early to say but what if one or all of the new boys appeal to the public?

Problem is, the opinion of the general public as to who those individuals are will likely not chime with the opinions of those on this forum. It's difficult for people here to really appreciate, because they watch the show avidly and follow the tours - but it'd be a minority of Strictly's 10m followers who could name anything more than a couple of pro's.

And if you did a survey of the general public asking them to name the first Strictly pro they could thing of - I'd wager than the answer would be Anton Du Beke. That would imply that Anton is the pro most associated with the shows success - despite his terrible latin and unpopularity on this forum. In which case, the producers were right to keep him.

It comes down to who the producers are making the show for. If its for those on this forum or the tens of thousands of hardcore fans, then the decisions are wrong. If it's for the millions of less dedicated viewers, well the decisions might be the right ones. And given that SCD is the BBC's biggest mass audience light entertainment show, I would think they're making it for the latter.

I grudgingly have to agree with this. I think if you asked people to name 2 pro dancers from the show I would have thought that most would name Anton and either Vincent or Brendan.


I did a straw poll with some friends of my parents over last weekend (on the beach) and I asked them if they could name the pro dancers they liked/enjoyed watching. Most could name Anton (the ballroom guy or the one with the terrible Latin/danced with Kate Garroway) and Brendan (the one who had a fling with Natasha K). Then the next one was Vincent (the little one who does tango) and Flavia (the one who had a fling with Matt di Angelo (note I didnt correct them )).

Then, even though she won last year, Ola was just "the lady with skimpy dresses who won with the bbc breakfast guy" and most couldnt remember her name or that her hubby was on the show.

I was really surprised that people struggled to even remember Ian and Matthew (the tall one and the blond one who was Alesha's partner) or Brian until I brought them up...

If we take the beach straw poll as a large proportion of joe public then perhaps the decisions were right...

This isn't really the case. For instance with Strictly 6, of the 14 weeks, only two didn't have more viewers than the week before. A succesful talent show will generally build week on week, peaking in the weeks before the final. Sometimes there's a peak around the launch, but that's usually surpassed by at least 2/5 of the run. Even last year the show was getting more viewers at the end than the start - it just didn't accelerate towards the end as much as 5 and 6 did and so disappointed.

Did she get the push ?

Where is Nicole ?