Wednesday, March 21, 2012

Dancing with the Stars’ Season 14 Premiere Has Good Dancing, Bad Ratings


"Dancing With the Stars" head judge Len Goodman called the Season 14 kickoff of the ABC show its "best premiere ever," but the contest's premiere ratings were its most horrible, down a enormous 34% from previous spring.

The show has been around a while and may look decayed compared to the NBC hit "The Voice," which shares the timeslot. Even though "DWTS" won in total number of viewers, it lost a key demographic to "The Voice," 18- to 49-year-olds.

What went wrong? by accident, it might be a cast that gets along and dances fine but provides no tabloid drama.

As activity Weekly put it, "The clandestine to casting 'Dancing' is having hot-button names like Bristol Palin, The circumstances, Nancy Grace, and Chaz Bono: celebrities that a big number of Americans have strong feelings about, positive or negative."

The Washington Post TV Column additional that the show looks to be the least contentious season ever -- "no realism stars, no political figures." And for reality television, that's not a good thing.

This season boasts a cast of insipid names (Gladys Knight? Jaleel "Steve Urkel" White? Jack Wagner?) along with complete not known like Katherine Jenkins, an opera star from the U.K. On the other hand, those who tune in to the show to see -- gasp -- actual dancing will be pleasantly surprised.

In fact, the cast got the highest scores from the judges of any "DWTS" premiere. "I think this is my favorite premiere, start to finish, that we've ever done," gush the show's host, Tom Bergeron. Celebrity Circuit from CBS agreed, calling the show "a current season with no bad dancers."