So you are in charge of producing Strictly and have been told you can do anything you want to change it as long as you ballpark keep to the current budget. What would you do?

Just for starters:

1) Get rid of the silly cringeworthy VTs where they do some staged visit or activity.
2) Use the time saved from the VTs to feature a different amateur ballroom club/dancing school each week and allow them to dance on the show. Maybe allow viewers to vote for their favourite on the final show.
3) Get rid of Bruno - can't stand him. Replace him with a current or past pro dancer. I know I will get one flack for this but I think James or Ola ( or both) would be good.
4) Replace Tess and Claudia as the main presenters - it's not working. Graham Norton would be so good.

At the moment I love the show how it is few choices I'd make:

1. Get rid of Anton! Once Robin is back, 7 male pros sorted.
2. Now we've had 15 couples the past two series to equal male/females out, revert back to 14 couples. Drop Aliona and Ola.
3. Bring in Emma Slater if that's impossible.. Keep Aliona!

Make the Final more meaningful to the series viewers by taking the votes cast for each finalist from every show in the whole series, instead of just for the final vote lines. (I am sick of X-Factor viewers watching Strictly for the first time deciding who wins)

Get rid of Movie / Halloween nights and instead celebrate British songwriters/ composers and have that person as a guest judge. Bee Gees / Cathy Dennis etc

Resign

1) Insist on using appropriate music for each dance, and making sure that the band plays it at the correct tempo

2) Have a "props" week (like they did in Dancing on Ice) and ban all props for all other weeks

3) Use only the 10 standard dances (5 ballroom, 5 Latin) dances for the first weeks, and not introduce AT or the party dances such as Charleston & salsa until the last couple of weeks

4) Put a time limit of 30 seconds as the maximum time allowed for "messing about" at the beginning, middle or end of a routine. The rest of the time must be used as authentic dancing

5) Replace Darcey with a ballroom/Latin expert. Even Bruno has learnt to talk some sense

6) Replace Tess; the main presenter needs to be a man who is witty but not necessarily a comedian. Someone like the guy who presents DWTS. Aled Jones springs to mind!

7) Stop the audience booing just because one of the judges says something they don't like!

No props, ever
Let the Pro dancers choose the music (even if it's from a short list)
Ten dance, only introduce extras (Charleston, AT, R&R, Swing) for the 1/4 final onwards
Limited "faffing abart" - 10 sec max at the beginning of the dance?
Standing ovations at the audience discretion, not the floor managers!

I would do the following:-

1. Couples all dance to same dances each week (half doing latin, the other half ballroom) i.e. Week 1 - Waltz or Cha Cha Cha (as in first few series);

2. Stick to appropriate costume styles i.e. if ballroom dance such as American Smooth men to wear formal suits;

3. Music to fit dance style i.e. traditional for paso, tango etc;

4. No guest judges unless as replacements for regular judges being absent due to bereavement/illness/in panto etc. Any guest judge(s) used to be from professional dancing background.

5. If any regular judge leaves, replacement to be from professional dancing background.

6. Go back to no more than 14 couples per series.

7. Ditch dance off.

8. Ditch guest appearances by singers/bands and replace with demonstrations of international folk dances.

9. Fewer celebrities in studio audience - more tickets made available to general public.

10. It Takes Two to be shown both in week leading up to first weeks' performances and also week following final.

11. When winners announced during final, make it clear which couple comes second, third etc.

12. Top half of leaderboard to be exempt from public vote and automatically go through to following week.

Public execution of the cameramen, and then get some Polish moths in. They'll do exactly the same job exactly the same way, but for less than the minimum wage. Then I'll use the money saved on canapés and enticing a higher class of proper celebrity on the show.

Do the judge's scores properly - Sort out the scores for Ties.
Score from the "bottom up" not "top down" so the ones at the bottom of the leaderboard do not get an advantage over those in the middle when the public votes are counted.

Instead of getting 7, 6 and 5 tonight - the bottom 3 should have got 3 points, 2 points or 1 point.

Death to cheesy VT and props!! I caught an old Strictly on holiday last year. It was "Would Karen Hardy and her partner (whoever it was) please take to the floor". They walked on and started dancing. No faffing and no hiding.

I'm going to start with my usual point that I use every time this thread is started.

I'd give Anton a life contract. This would ensure he competes for as long as he wants to then is moved to a position of his choice ie judge or presenter.

I'd give Karen Hauer her marching orders. I'd keep Kristina if she promised to wear a chastity belt.

I'd show training in the pre-dance VTs

A final ITT after the final

I'd bring back James Jordan. Keep Tristan and Robin, bye bye Trent. Yes I know I have too many men now but oh well.

Ditch Darcey in favour of Karen Hardy

Bye bye props!

Back to how it used to be with dance selection - week 1 waltz or cha cha, week 2 foxtrot or salsa etc with Charleston and AT added in the quarter finals.

Give the pros the choice of what music they use

Fire whoever choses the trousers for the boys. Unless they agree to make Anton, Pasha and Tristan's rip every week...

she could have used it tonite. It could have saved Simon a faceful in that dodgy lift

1. Assuming he's still dancing at the required standard, bring Matthew Cutler back.

2. Show the results on Saturday or, if the BBC won't do that because they want the viewers on Sunday, stop pretending that Sunday is live.

Other than that, as long as Robin comes back, I think the show is fine in it's current form.

Let the public know who came second! I hate that they don't tell us the final order. It's an insult to be honest.

I agree with everything, bar 5. I like Darcy. I would rather keep her and ditch Bruno. He is getting worse every series.

I also think they should go back to 2 dances a week, 1 ballroom and 1 Latin. It made it much easier to compare the dances. I also think it made for a better show.

Please, no more guest judges, unless a regular judge is sick. Donny was dreadful last week. Why he couldn't have just performed in the results show is beyond me.

I really wish they would go back to showing the results show on the Saturday. Everyone knows it's not live. Having costume changes and constantly referring to 'last night' is a farce. There would also be less chance of the result being leaked.

I can't agree with bringing james back. He got way to big for his boots and thought he was bigger than the show. I would also get rid of Ola.

I would keep Trent and not bring robin back, I never took him. Trent is always being congratulated on his choreography.

I don't mind Darcy, but think Karen should replace Bruno. He is getting worse with each series. He's becoming a lecherous old queen...

The chastity belt for kristina made me chuckle...

1 Get rid of Tess
2 Give Anton the job
3 Bring back James Jordon, Robin Windsor & Matthew Cutler
4 Get rid of all props
5 Bring back proper ballroom dancing
6 Only 2 dances per night
7 Better more appropriate costumes
8 Did I mention - GET RID OF TESS!!!!!!!

I said this before and I'll say it again, if judges votes took priority over telephone voting all of the ridiculous popularity voting would totally be stopped. We would pretty much see the worst dancer go out every week - which is how it absolutely should be. it's a dance contest not a popularity contest

I would stop recruiting "personalities" (Scott, Tim, Judy and the like) This makes an imbalance in the voting off. In other words people should vote for the best dancers, not their favourite!

No props or scenery!

No tight trousers for the male dancers, and sew up the pockets as they gape and spoil the line.

Scrap the dance off, to a large extent as soon as we know the bottom 2 we know who is leaving.

From the quarter-final stage judges votes do not count, whoever polls the fewest viewer votes is out.

Only 1 week where props are allowed.

Cut the series back to 10 or 12 contestants, 15 is too many. And it's a NO from me with regard to the civilian contest next year. Good programs need protection, over exposing the program leads to viewer getting feed up and then switching off.

Bruno to go but only because I don't think you could sack Len. Replace with Erin Boag.

Tell the judges they have a scoring system of 1 - 10 and instruct them to use it.

Allow the pros to pick the music for their dance, some of the producer choices over the last few years have been truly terrible and are a disservice to some of the contestants.

A judges scoreboard where the worst gets 1 point the second worst gets 2 points and so on, not the current system where last night Scott received 5 points from the judges, it should be 1,

Simply guarantee 3 in the final no dance off when only 4 couples are left, that way if someone does have to pull out AND someone gets injured there can be no judges fixing who goes through.



All of the above

Keep Claudia, but give the hosting job to a safe pair of hands like Bradley Walsh or Brian Conley.
Get rid of Len who has become too grumpy.Perhaps replace with Brendan.
Replace Darcy with Kimberly Wyatt from Got to Dance.
Get rid of all props and slow openings to dance, get in hold as soon as possible.
Keep the dance off, but also announce who scored lowest in the viewers vote.
Have three styles of dance each week, so that the celebs can be compared like with like.

What a great thread with some brilliant suggestions. Get rid of Tess, yes get rid of VT, yes, let pros choose music, yes, stop the faffing, yes, replace Bruno, yes, another female dancer would be good.

I'd love it if the producers read this thread.

1 - Replace Bruno with Karen Hardy.

2 - Tell Len to stop using his "you came out, gave it a go, well done..." lazy fallback line to all the mediocre celebs. If they're bad say so, and how they can improve.

3 - Swap Tess and Claudia around.

4 - Cut out the cheesy VT's before the dances. That's what Strictly: It Takes Two is for, go straight from introduction to the dance.

5 - Make the public voting figures public.

6 - No more themed nights and/or guest judges, last week was awful.

1. Ditch the dance-off - the show's too predictable and safe in its elimination order now. People used to gasp over shock boots, now it's shock "in the bottom 2 but we know the judges will save them for the next month or so anyway so who cares"s.

2. Replace Tess with someone, anyone, male or female, adult or child, animal, vegetable or mineral with a personality.

3. Get rid of the Charleston. (This is a personal one, I know the public love it, but I'm so so bored of it and have been since about halfway through Series 10)

4. 14 contestants maximum. Having to sit through more than that in one evening and my attention drifts fatally. At the same time, go back to having only three couples in the final. Most series obviously have four "contenders" who are obvious from about a third of the way through (even earlier this year). Having all of them in the final just makes it feel like none of them have had to really work for it.

5. Let the Comedy Contestants become so organically and slowly, and on their own terms, not by forcing them into stupid costumes and deliberately naff choreography from Week 1.