I don't miss Jason at all - I'd much rather listen to Robin, Katarina and Louie delivering their insightful comments without the rudeness or nastiness Jason used all the time.

That said, I think ratings are down not because of Mr Ego, but because....

The show goes on too long because of the far too many ad breaks (along with the stupid Macleans sponsorship "storyline" they insist on shoving down our throats);

The stupid VTs which waste time and are totally unnecessary;

The choreography which is getting a bit boring and samey.

All they need to put it back on track is to cut the number of ad breaks ( which take up far too much valuable viewing time), and cut out most of the VTs. That could take the show down to around an hour and a half max at the beginning of the run, and an hour once the numbers left competing drop.

Agreed. Anyone who seriously thought Jason or Holly were the show's real draw is far better off not watching. Or, indeed, ever speaking to me ever


So how do we explain the fact that SCD has shows just as long or longer, much of which it has started filling with VTs considerably stupider than DOI's - and yet its ratings are up?

I agree the choreography is dull though - at least half this week's routines looked really 'phoned in' (Sam's in particular was a disgrace). Given that the number of lifts went down the week after the judges criticised Chemmy, I'm hoping this week's batch of criticism will serve to tart up the routines a bit.

That said, I reckon you could solve both problems really easily by just limiting the number of competitors to, say, 10 and then having a two-week initial elimination process like SCD - for example, you could have 'slow week' and 'fast week', then tot up the points from both for an overall first elimination.

Totally agree on the Macleans ads though. They seem to get worse and worse. (Although I did like the original premise of the girl with the ten guys and having to get rid of one each week)

There was some analysis done in the ratings thread for the shows on 22/1 & 29/1. Basically the show is unsurprisingly losing viewers after 8 PM due to Call The Midwife being very popular but even bigger impact is how few watch before 7 PM. Think my theory about the shows being too long is a big factor. I think it's possible that some viewers aren't as interested without jason on the panel but I don't believe the drop in ratings is all or mostly down to him.

Also think it's premature to talk about axing the show - 7.5m is still fairly decent & I doubt anything ITV would replace it with would get anything near that figure unless they put Corrie on on Sundays. I'm sure that some changes will need to be made for next year & those I would look at would be:-

- Reduce number of contestants to 12, it's far better to have a bigger & higher rated show that's a couple of weeks shorter than put in extra contestants for the sake of it

- Have a launch show like they did a couple of years ago. This should reduce the length of the VTs in the opening show(s) and make them a bit more zippy. If people find the first show or 2 boring & dragged out that can't help

- If BBC have more competition against the show on a Sunday perhaps the series should consider moving the performance show back to Saturdays (Sat night TV is a bit dull for me at the moment). The results show (where ratings have really fallen badly this year) could still stay on a Sunday but be shown earlier & have pro routines and guest music artists performing. Make more of it - even I as an avid fan was watching Sherlock instead of the results when that was on, in these days of Social Networking you can easily find out the result online and I'm sure a lot of people do that rather than watch the recapping and Philip's pauses when announcing the results.

- I quite like the line up this year and overall the show is never going to get loads of A listers & the line up has always largely consisted of soap stars/pop stars whose best days are behind them/retired sportspeople etc. so I don't get the general criticism of the line up. However, the money they save if they reduce the number of contestants could perhaps go on enticing 1 or 2 stars who will have wide appeal and will get more press attention for the show. Put it this way if I was the member of the production team responsible for booking celebs I'd have been straight to the bar after the show trying to get Zara Phillips for the show. If someone like her did the show it would get massive interest from the tabloids & also the broadsheets and would surely gain more casual viewers.

It is a bit flat without Jason. Holly was better than Christine too

But I agree there are too many adds and too much boring filler in the show.

It was on for 2 hours last night but most of it wasn't skating :yawn:

Are the ratings for this series really that bad? I knew they'd gone down, but surely it's not that bad is it?

I do think the episodes are too long at the beginning of this series, that's down to their being so many ad breaks though. Surely they could cut back on them?

That's my point exactly..... the numerous LONG ad breaksruin the flow of the show and the filler is just boring... we don't need such long fillers introducing each skater, nor the pseudo "will they? won't they be able to pull it off?" crap over lifts or tricks.

Back in the old days.. when Noah was building the ark, ITV used to have a maximum of 2 ad breaks (with a max of 3 ads in each) in an hour long show, roughly every 20 minutes or so. Last night the ad breaks seemed like they were coming along every 5-10 minutes and when you factor in the awful Macleans ads at the beginning and end of each break PLUS at least 3 ads in between.... as you say there is almost as much time spent on ad breaks as there is on the show which is just down to ITV being greedy with the revenue!

I'd say we lost the best part of an hour just on the ad breaks last night, and the rest with unecessary filler. that's either lazy programming or greed.

Stil don't miss Mr Ego at all. Give Louie time to settle in - and allow him to relax into his role - and he can be as critical as Jason - but with humour rather than nastiness.

You are SO right. Can't anyone at ITV see that this show is just far, far too long?

Easy. SCD realised quickly when their show was too long and cut it back. DOI is not as interesting because there aren't enough celebrities out there who are prepared or able to take part in skating. SCD is also a much slicker and more glamorous show with audience closer to the action and a slightly more upmarket feel to it. I used to like DOI but it got silly and now I just can't watch it.

the result show is a farce

For me, to much waffle, dull contestants, samey routines, females spending 90% of the time being carried, endless ads.

I Sky+ it and on a good day can get both shows down to about 35 minutes.

All good stuff until you got to Zara Philips. The Queen is never going to allow one of her grandchildren to go on a competitive show. The Royals got their fingers badly burnt with its's a Royal Knockout and the Tindalls certainly need to lie a bit low for a while after Mike's abysmal performance in New Zealand. The Royal family may accept that Zara has married a yob, but they're not going to want their faces rubbed in the dirt - again.

I agree about the choreography problems. If I see one more "woman pulled through the legs" move (it always looks so naff even when done well) I'll scream. And some of the lifts aren't that spectacular either - I'd rather a more exciting routine without lifts than some of the upside down splits and whatnot that we've been having.

I like the panel (love Kati but I fear some people will be going off her after last night) but maybe some spark is missing a bit. Having said that, I couldn't bare Jason who just made it all about him.

Phillp's bugging the hell out of me too (twitter, crap joke, twitter, pause, laugh, twitter, crap joke).

Just to add my opinion into the mix, personally I think it's the 'filler' and adverts that are doing the show no favours rather than the people on it.

Having said that I'm much happier with Louie than I ever was with Jason - it's such a relief to have three judges who simply do that, judge, without bringing personal insults into their comments. I'm one of those who was dreading Louie's arrival onto the show (having only seen the OTT stuff of his on Harry Hill's TV Burp) but it's been a pleasant surprise. Louie knows what he's there for and he delivers - he's tempered his natural exuberance enough and delivers his comments with good humour, fairness (in as much as any of them are 'fair' when you're talking about someone's subjective opinions) and with the benefit of knowledge of skill behind him.

Christine I can take or leave. I'm afraid I'm one of those 'shallow' people who simply can't take to the NI accent (many apologies to those from there). It just sounds so harsh and the way the accent pronounces some of the sounds is very strange to my ears. I don't mean any offence by that - you can't please everyone all of the time, and it's purely a personal preference which I fully realise has no bearing on her as a person. However she is really just the 'fluff' alongside Philip Scofield, just as Holly was - neither of them offer anything other than making it not a one-person presenting team. There's not actually any practical reason for them to be there - one person could easily read all the autocue bits, it's just that someone has decided (years ago, probably) that all shows like this 'need' a man and a woman presenting team to make it 'work'.

So, for me, it's the adverts and filler that are responsible more than the people - each show could be much shorter, but much more content-driven. I'm sure the powers-that-be at ITV know that as well as we do, but are beholden to their advertisers. Until that changes (and it probably never will) then we are stuck with shows which are made to be over-long in order to fit in a certain number of adverts.

This time I'm not enjoying DOI as much.

When they started telling us this was the best series ever when it had just started the alarm bells started ringing.

I prefer the original female presenter.

There are too many adverts.

I find it difficult to find empathy with any of the contenders.

The Hollywood episode seemed to come too early in the series when a lot of the contenders didn't seemed polished enough to do it justice - it was disappointing.

It all gets a bit tedious.

I miss the original judges.

I don't know if Zara would do the show & I'm sure she wouldn't do anything against her grandmother's wishes. If you don't ask though you don't get & I think Zara is the one royal who could get away with it as she has been successful in her own right as a sportswoman. She has lots of sponsorships & I think in previous times that would not have been seen as the 'done thing' for a royal either so you never know.

The show is way too long and there are far too many adverts. I've started to record the programme and watch it later because there is too much filler in the main show. They should have the main show on Saturday and have the results show on sunday.

First year I have not watched it. I have been watching Call the Midwife but this is not the reason I have stopped watching DOI. It's because there are too many of these celeb 'talent' shows on now. The other reason us that with DOI and all the other similar shows, there are always one or two who stand out from the rest and so you know by the first or second show who is going to be in the final so no point in sitting through 13 or more episodes of dross. The manipulation in the scoring and the dance order is so blatent too.

In any of these reality tv shows, the judging panel and the contestants are the most important.

If Holly was brought back next week, it would have very little impact on ratings. Actually, she might be exposed for how little she actually brought to the show. This is due to the scrutiny of Christine Bleakley, as many people had decided to hate/ attack her even before the show started.

However, if Jason was brought back next week, I think it would have a big impact upon ratings. The judges make more of a contribution to the show than the female host.

I can remember so many Jason moments over the years, my only memory of Holly is standing there pregnant with a gormless look on her face.

I think to be fair to Holly, she did more in the early years, but as soon as they reduced the panel to three judges, her role was instantly reduced. This year the judges all know they are expected to say something after each skate, and that if they patiently wait their turn, they will get to have their say. It makes for more balanced comments for each individual skater, but there is a lack of sponteneity.

Like him or loathe him, people have to admit that there were people wondering what on earth Jason would say next, or just how frosty the body language would be from Karen.

Overall though, I think the reason ratings are down this year is a hangover from last year and there being rubbish twists, and too many contestants and too many long shows. ITV did well to have the "twist" last week that mixed it up a bit, and gave us a shorter show.

The Midwife show is significant too. I know people say it doesn't clash for most of the evening, but a lot of people can't be bothered with too much tv on a Sunday night. Knowing they've got a good drama to watch later on means people can do without the very long show on ITV with too many ad breaks.

ITV have milked DOI by having too many ad breaks, with all of the sponsorship bits and competitions dragging out the show. People moan a lot about them, so ITV should think carefully about reducing them next year, and making it a shorter series, so people don't feel like it's so much hard work to get to the good bits.

Most of the reasons I have stopped really watching are on here, I have just got all round bored with it. I think that there is too much VT and adverts, I did try recording and just fast forwarding to the skating but I just couldn't be bothered this week. I can't get into the partnerships the way I have done in the past, and do on Strictly. I really like Louis Spence but not in such large and regular doses, and as much as I thought Jason was a bit of a mentalist and genuinely unpleasant, at least he kept it more lively.

I once sat behind Jason Gardener at The Rocky Horrow show. He didn't dress up but he was with a young chap wearing red hotpants and a sparkly hat. Just thought I would share, he was a bit miserable at that too.

And a lot of the skating isn't skating. For God's sake how long does it take to do a good three turn, Mohawk and Choctaw kand some half decent crossovers forwards and backwards etc. Didn't take me that long and I did not have the concentrated lessons and tuition from some of the top skaters past and present.

I know some people take to it more naturally than others but I do wonder how some of them get to the stage where they are petrified to let go of their partner even for a nano second (yes I'm looking at you Heidi). They apparantly have a few weeks of private lessons before meeting partners so you'd think they would all get to having some sort of confidence in their basic skating skills.

IMHO Its a bit of both.
ITV can face one reality they hired her for a Failed breakfast show trying to find a show people are going to like her in will be very hard,she just isnt connecting with people.

Phil also said today the theme of the show was changed because One Direction were going to appear.It went from 80's to Pop..I might have got the themes wrong because it was kicking off in the house here.but if they are swapping/dropping themese just for the music act that seems insane.
apparently Pat sharp was going to be a DJ (that was the wig sam was using with the Mullet tucked up inside.Phil then said 'oh they are going to kill me for telling people what happened'.It simply isnt good enough.

theres no dount Jason totally went OTT last series I think the best solution would have been jason AND louis.the panel back upto 4 judges.Two from the dance and two from the skating.Louis and Jason have been friends for a very long time and trained together when they first started out apparently

I heard Phil say that too, he said it was supposed to be a Disco themed week and when the producers managed to get One Direction on they changed it at the last minute.

I'm wondering if he's not happy with what's happening behind the scenes and that's why he chose to reveal that publicly? Either way it's bad form, and is actually pretty sloppy of the producers. One Direction added nothing to the show, none of the musical "guests" ever do. To change a whole format just to accomdate a teeny bopper boyband is ridiculous. I'd much rather see the celebrities doing a routine as a group or something like that.

If ITV want this show to continue being a success they need to pull their fingers out.

I think Jason and Louie would be good on the panel together also but please don't bring Holly back, one woman showing her boobs is enough. If people want to watch that sort of thing, there are other channels where women present with their boobs out