In amongst all the press speculation about the celebs for the new series apparantly they will get paid the longer they stay in.

I think this is a good thing as I've always thought it unfair that the person who goes out in week 1 gets the same as the winner/finalists.

I agree with you ...... be good if footballers were given "performance related" pay as well.

Shame they don't introduce performance related pay to the presenters and judges panel too. The money saved might just end the recession a bit quicker...

Will there be performance-related pay for bankers?
The IMF today recommended that senior bankers be taxed extra on their pay, uh, on what taxpayers pay them.

The further a celeb gets on the show, the more they will get paid.

Oooohhh .... we may see sabotage afoot

Brendan wouldn't be averse to legging someone over during the pro dance !

And I can see plenty of room for arguments on the forums (perish the thought ) when two good celebs end up in the dance-off due to the public voting for a complete duffer.

In a 0-0 game the participants not to get paid.

Not so much performance related pay as public preference related pay!

Still, one way of doubling the headline potential payment while making sure it actually costs only the same.

i think its a good thing..i think that in the past some have just show up not made an effort and made sure they had bad marks and prayed they were voted out early and just collect the cash.

I think that the pros should also get an incentive...anton did well last year and had a good partner but most years he has had rubbish partners and has been happy not to push them too far and muddle through.

Its a pity that there is such a gap between the judges pay and the pros as the pros have to put in far more hours than the judges. Personally I'd prefer a new guest judge every week.

Actually I can't recall thinking a celeb wasn't making an effort, except where they haven't made enough time for training (e.g. Gary Rhodes). Even JS made the effort and it kills me to say that!

Tbh I doubt if the money makes that much difference to the celebs. I suspect it will be a nice thing to get more money the longer they stay in the competition, but I doubt if that would be a driver - the continued exposure will be the main driver imho.

Anoher dud idea. The reason why you pay everyone the same is that no one can afford to go on a show that writes them out ffor at least 4 months if they find themselves out in week one with nothing else in their diary. You don't pick up entertainment jobs with a week's notice. If they have anything else in their diary they will be wanting to get out of the show to do it. This will lead some to turn up to get some publicity and then get out in time for the panto or next set of PAs. This makes the show more risky for the able who may go early and gives everyone an incentive to book themself another job to go to and go to it at some point if it pays better.

You can't incentivise SCD celeb dancers. The hopeless are hopeless however many carrots you dangle infront of them. The voters as a group are almost certainly older than the article suggests and vote on set biases, with the result that there's often no relationship between trying or being good and staying. Until you actually have voters who vote for the people who try most or perform best , you can't reward either effort or ability. As it is, the reward for who does well is the publicity from staying longer, the jobs that thye may look right for and the better paid place on the tour they may earn - you don't need more.

Exactly. To get people to sign up and free their diaries and turn up would cost what it does now, so logically the incentive would have to be an additional payment per week for staying beyond some point.

What about the pros? Are some going to get paid more for staying longer or will just preparing the odd group routine still count the same as training a celeb for the week? Are they really having one logic for the pro and one for the celeb? If the celeb has to be paid as its not their fault if they are given a duffer, why should the celeb not be paid for being picked as a duffer?

TBH Networkbabe the type of people who mostly do Strictly are people who are currently 'between jobs' such as retired sportspeople, former soap stars, actors currently struggling to find work or ex pop stars whose solo careers are floundering. They do it to increase their profile to potentially get more work. Any actor who turns down offers of work to clear their diaries to go on Strictly is monumentally stupid IMO given the vagaries of the profession.

It's not necessarily about incentivising them but more about rewarding those who get to the later stages and end up putting serious amounts of hours in the training studios.

I think Tiger Rose has a point.

I know on DWTS they start off with a flat fee of something like 250K in American dollars. Then if they make to the semifinal they get an additional bonus and the another bonus for making the top 3 and the win . So the choice is theirs. If you got the same money no matter how you hard or how little you work or practice, it is not as much incentive to try to take it all the way if you have gotten the public exposure you needed just by being in the competition. It is like any other job where producing results nets you more money. Some celebs don't want to completely focus on the competition at the exlcusion of their other projects and they get a lot of public exposure by making it a few weeks or so.

I believe the pros are also paid more for each week their celebrity stays in.

It may not be the best way of doing things but it does financially reward those who are willing to put the hours in.

I pity the dancers which get the poor/older celebs then. Seems rather unfair that some have no-chance of getting more than a few weeks, but some will have a clear ride to the final, based on something largely outside their control.


Edit: oops ignore me, i was thinking of the dancers...not the celebs.

Yes, that is the downside of it. Very unfair to the pros.

The pros get a flat-rate pay anyway because they still have to dance every week, their incentive is to win, and I don't see how offering them extra money per week would help when they're often helped or hindered by the popularity and natural talent of their celeb.

Perhaps they could go the whole hog in their cost cutting and have a leccy meter by the dance floor entrance and the contestants have go put 50p in to get lights and sound when they dance.

Ok I suppose I can see where they are coming from with celebs being paid on a performance basis , but then they like the professionals may have turned down work for this period so they end up losing money, it could see them with less people willing to take part and it wil lend up wwith loads of people trying to relaunch the careers instead.

Yes for this reason i think they would still have to offer a reasonable amount in the first place, otherwise god knows who we'll end up with

So does a pro who goes out in week 1 get the same money as a pro who makes the final?

Not forgetting the very fickle nature of the voting public (who don't necessarily vote in logical ways).

Yes but 50k from SCD was competitive even if you could find other lesser or similar offers for the 3-4 months. If you are, say, a soap star between jobs and not a hopeless case who can't find any work , once you sign on for SCD you stop looking for other jobs for the duration of the show safe in the knowledge you will bank 50k. Now you can't commit to anything else but you may end up with 10k and nothing to do for 3 months. The smart person will do what some people have recently done on the show and take the other job(s) too and assume that they will go early from SCD or run down their SCD commitment to allow them to do the other jobs. As SCD clashes with panto season the sensible thing to do is to take the panto job and give it priority and just pocket as much as you can from SCD. You can't rely on SCD rewarding your time or effort as the voting isn't about that.

You might want to reward those who do really well more but thats a seperate issue from not paying those who commit to the series but go out on some whim of the public vote. Its a cheap response to pay half less to pay half more.

Yes, as they still have to dance the pro dances, do ITT slots and often end up doing the pro group choreography because the dancers still in the competition have no time. Don't forget the pros who get far in the competition drop out of the pro dances too - Ola, Natalie and Brian were absent from pro dances from the quarter finals onwards at least, and I believe the week before Ola only danced a solo rumba with James and I don't think Natalie or Brian were in the group number....

Contestants may be able to do other jobs at the same time as SCD but not panto. If they're doing panto they have to be available for Saturday matinee and evening performances. I doubt most theatres can afford to pay two actors to do the job - one for weekdays and one for Saturdays - nor would they want to, if they can instead cast an actor who'll be there for every performance rather than one who'll only be there when other commitments allow.