What decline??? Have I read the rating figures wrong?? Like the format or not (and I have many gripes with it ) it is still working but totally agree a revamp is needed.

Personally don't think you can successfully change the presenters or judges now without disturbing the show too much I bang on about this every year but alterations I would make would be the following

1) Change at least half of the professionals - it's the easiest way to breathe new lifeinto the show.

2) Introduce a league system to the first 4 weeks of the show - couples dance are marked by judges in the normal way, public vote and for the results we learn who has won and what place they come using the points system as they do for the judges points are awarded to the couples. In this we way WE get to see the couples more and they are given a few weeks to 'bed' in after 4 weeks get rid of the 4 lowest couples on the leader board and then introduce the knockout stages from then on.

3) Add another judge from the world of Ballroom and Latin (but a top notch one, must be at least an ex national Champion) change the guest judge everyweek to bring a different opinion into the panel.

As for Come Dancing it just would not work now, the BBC killed it when it messed about with the original format and introduced European team into the show frankly don't think many competing couples would be interested (and I know many) BUT agree that showing the Uk Nationals and European/Worlds on TV would be good

I think "decline" is a bit strong. This has been the first poor series of SCD after how many years now? Five?

And it's been poor for all the main reasons everyone here has talked about. But all these problems are due to the introduction of the Sunday voting show, the poor behaviour and voting of the judges, and IMHO the substandard quality of the celebs.

If the BBC has the guts to admit it was wrong and brings back the Saturday night results show, and offloads the awful Len and unprofessional Arlene, there's no reason to suggest the next series should carry on any sort of decline.

I think we've all been treated to some spectacularly good celebrities in the past few series (Darren Gough, Ramps, Colin Jackson, Kaplinksy, Zoe Ball) and are now expecting a bit too much.

But I quite understand that special sparkle has been missing from the current series.

I like all these points, Bendymixer, especially the idea of the BBC televising a good professional dance championship. This would enable them to assess the level of interest among general viewers for proper dance competition. It's as though those of us with no experience of dance have been allowed a glimpse into a fascinating world without the opportunity to look further.

Re. 3 - I wish they had a guest judge for the week of AT, as none of the judges know anything about it and all Len's posturing about gauchos and ladies of the night makes me want to scream/throw things at the tv. For that matter, I'd love them to properly codify what they want with a salsa - i.e. is it Cuban salsa? - as a couple have veered towards samba without complaint by the judges.

There are so many digital and international channels that they really should think about the UK/European/Worlds - after all, these are the pros we'll be getting in a while...

Absolutely agree with all that. A guest judge for the non-ballroom dances would be great. Hell, get rid of Bruno and have different guest judges each week, that'd shake things up a bit.

And yes, the salsa / samba stuff annoys me also

At least one judge has to go...

Most of this is entirely subjective. Some see lack of sparkle where others see even more sequins than usual.

I, for one, do not believe that we've been expecting too much for our celebs and I believe they've more than delivered this series. Frankly, they are way and above the 'quality' some of those we've had in the past - Kaplinsky (misery personified) and Gough (dancing buffalo), especially.

I agree and there's been plenty of sparkle for me!

There's an excellent post on the Other Side (BBC forum) by Lankidden. It's message 29 in the thread why Gethin got knocked out and deals with many of the same points as in my OP here.

This poster (I read him as male, I don't know why) saw the decline in Strictly very early in the series and appears to have had no reason to change his mind.

Definitely worth reading.

Janjohn, you've not responded to the people who've asked you about how the ratings improvements can be squared with this supposed decline?

Yes I did answer, in a message posted on this thread yesterday. For me there has been a decline in quality which is perfectly compatible with popularity in this age of dumbing down. There are many other examples of this in the media generally.

Absolutely. But once you lose quality - ratings follow very quickly - look at Big Brother!

Thank you Chillidragon, I'm glad somebody understands what I'm getting at.

Thanks for the link janjohn - I read it and found it almost spookily foreknowledgeable.

I agree with what you are getting at - the producers have taken previous negative traits of the programme and amplified them for RTV exposure purposes. I know it's a Saturday night light entertainment show but we do invest emotionally in it - hence the millions of postings on websites like these. I hope things calm down next series.

Sorry OP, but especially after watching the old clips on ITT from previous series, I don't see any decline. In fact, I think the good dancers now are as good or even better than any before.

And if we were losing quality surely the ratings would be decreasing, not increasing?

Probably not immediately - it takes time for people to register what is happening and to turn away from a programme which has been important to them. The viewing demographic will start to change, with more discriminating viewers switching off first and perhaps a newer/younger(?) audience taking their place for a time.

Take this forum. I have been struck by the generally high level of literacy and intelligence among posters here and also in the Other Place. I would suggest that some of these posters will abandon SCD next series unless certain changes are made and indeed a few of them may have abandoned it already. The content of the discussion will change and become more gossipy. The grammar, punctuation and spelling will get worse. There will be more textspeak. The watching public for SCD will more closely resemble that for Big Brother or I'm A Celebrity.

This sounds very elitist, which I do not want to be. Strictly has been the show above all others which has attracted viewers from every conceivable segment of society, age-group, etc and I really do want this to continue. And I am not implying that those who see nothing wrong with Strictly are a load of morons without taste. But where I am concerned, the writing has started to appear on the wall this series; it is as yet faint but is getting clearer all the time.

I genuinely hope I am wrong.

I think you're at crossed purposes. The OP is meaning decline as in quality of the programme itself - the same difference in quality as there is between um.... The Daily Sport and The Times newspapers, for example. She doesn't mean quality of dancing or position in the ratings charts.

Sadly, I think you are right. I've only really participated in this Forum this year but I've been struck by the high standard of literacy, intelligence and sophistication shown by many of the posters. As you say it will take time but a feeling that the contest is unfair and manipulated will drive the more discerning viewers away.

I watch it now purely for the dancing and the interest and enjoyment of seeing people from a shaky beginning develop and transform.

As for the rest of it............

I completely agree. After the semi final, for instance, my parents (who are actually supporting Alesha), have said they're unlikely to watch the SCD next year. They're huge dancing fans, they dance socially themselves. They're what you'd call um... young pensioners, I suppose.

My mother says she likes SCD because it is a) dance-based and b) is the "acceptable face of RTV" - by that she means it's a currently popular format but it doesn't have the lowest-common-denominator factor of things like Big Brother.

Yes, that's HORRENDOUSLY snobbish of her, and she is duly mocked for it. But her response to that is that she represents a growing demographic - she's in her 60s, she's retired, she's got a healthy disposable income. She wants to see quality TV and if the BBC doesn't give it to her, she'll simply turn off or over. She won't pay for telephone calls to vote, she won't buy tickets for her and the grandchildren to SCD tours (which she has this year), she won't, in short, support or give money to anything she thinks doesn't deserve it.

She's completely convinced that the "Pensioner Pound" is going to count for more and more over the coming years, and that the Pensioner Pound will require quality, and y'know, she may well be right. So there's one sort of person who doesn't go for dumbing down.

Quite honestly I think the whole idea of phone-in anything is open to abuse. We do not know how many votes each contestant receives or how many people vote in total etc and I think after all the problems in the last year with phone-ins I am quite amazed that people still vote!! I would be very interested to know if the voting has slowed down this year after all the problems both BBC and ITV have had. Now we have thousands of complains about X Factor as people are convinced it was fixed!! I have the results programme on Sunday with everyone pretending it is live!!! No excitement at all regarding the results as usual I forget to watch it!!

I can see why you think that from my last post, but the way I understand the OP's point is that basically less emphasis is being placed on the quality of the dancing and it is becoming more of a popularity contest.

However, I think that as the show has increased in popularity (as shown by the ratings), inevitably less and less new watchers with some knowledge of dancing will be tuning in.

Instead you have many more watchers who simply -

a). Like the dancing and can tell a good overall performance from a bad one without necessarily recognising a chassis from a fleckerl (sp?)

or

b). Don't really care about the dancing too much, but just love voting for their favourite.

But that has always been the case, so essentially nothing has changed except the show has become more and more popular. So there's far more of them now than the watchers who have a real interest in just the dancing who are becoming more and more disappointed - the suggestion that Come Dancing could be revived wasn't bad IMHO.

As for the argument about higher number of 10s this series - seeing the clips of the previous series on ITT last night just showed how the standard of the good celeb's dancing ability has increased (for what ever reason) since the show began - so logically their scores will be consistently higher.

Now however, some of us who have stayed with the show through several series have gained some of the knowledge the dance aficionados always had and can join in the discussion about whether judge A was right or Judge B.

No, I don't think the show is in decline.

Personally, I've found this series the same mix of joy and disappointment as the other 3 I've watched. Did have one question, though. As has been said, ratings are up, but has the programme said anything about how many are voting? I can remember in past series them announcing how many votes they'd had in, but I can't remember it this time. That may be though because I tape the results show and often fast forward through the long pauses, etc around the 'moment of truth'. Voting might be very high, going on how often everyone here is voting. Or it may be down because of the scandals, etc. I'd have thought that if voting is down a great deal that might inspire changes next year. Otherwise, I'd have thought that the BBC sees this series as a massive success, in newspaper coverage, ratings (esp the Sunday show) and in the emotion inspired in the audiences. The people I know who watch but not as obsessively as the people on here are very positive about this series.

Have they said anything about votes?

I voted nearly every week last year, and the year before. Not this year because of the manipulated results.

Until last week.

I do know people on here who know people etc in the outside world who haven't voted as much either for the same sort of reasons.

It is interesting because in the last two series Bruce made a point of saying how many votes was in the semi final. He even said how many in the quarter final series 3 when Patsy went. 2million there I think.

Not this year.

I can see why you think that from my last post, but the way I understand the OP's point is that basically less emphasis is being placed on the quality of the dancing and it is becoming more of a popularity contest.

No, I did not talk about the quality of the dancing and did not imply that this had gone down. The quality and consistency of the dance judging has certainly declined and as I indicated in my OP, I believe there is a fundamental confusion about the aims of the show which leads to a lot of heated argument on the forums.