Disney Plus
According to a new report, some “Dancing With the Stars” professional dancers are privately worried about the show’s future. An insider told The Sun that there are murmurings backstage about the show being canceled.
Here’s what you need to know:
The ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Insider Says the Backstage Rumblings Are About Viewership Numbers
According to their source, The Sun says that backstage, members of the cast or crew have been expressing worries about the ratings.
“Backstage too there has been conversations and worries expressed about ratings. No official ratings are being released at all and the talk is that we are doing half or even less than the numbers we were doing on ABC last year,” said the insider.
While it is true that Disney Plus has not released any numbers for season 31, there have been a couple of indications that viewership is better than expected.
First, in an Instagram story from judge Derek Hough where he said that they received some numbers for the premiere and it exceeded expectations by nine times what production thought the viewership numbers would be.
“I’m not supposed to share this, but we just got some information that last week’s premiere of ‘Dancing With the Stars’ actually exceeded expectations in viewership by nine times. Nine times it exceeded expectations!” said Hough. “So I just want to say thank you so much to everybody who tuned in to watch, who care about the show, who care about us, who have been with us since the beginning, who are new, thank you. Thank you so much, it means the absolute world to us. Thank you for coming along with us on this new adventure, this new journey, this new era of entertainment. We love you, we appreciate it, so let’s keep this party rolling, guys.”
Then in an interview with Sway’s Universe, hosts Tyra Banks and Alfonso Ribeiro teased the numbers too, saying that they aren’t really supposed to talk about numbers, but they’ve been hearing good things.
“We not supposed to talk about it, but from what I understand, we killed it,” said Ribeiro.
However, better than expected might not mean much if expectations were really low. When “Dancing With the Stars” aired its final season on ABC, the average number of viewers per episode (via ratings numbers from Programming Insider) was 4.9 million. When DVR’d viewings within seven days were taken into account, that number increased by about a million per episode, to roughly 6 million.
If expectations were that the show would hold steady and it has actually gotten nine times that, that would put the ratings at roughly 45 million people per episode. That seems high. So presumably, the expectations were quite a bit lower than the show holding steady with what it did on ABC.
But if the show actually is holding steady, that would put the expectations as having been at only 500,000 viewers, which also feels low for expectations. It’s hard to know anything without actual numbers.
The Insider Said the Producers Are Not Considering Moving Back to ABC
The “Dancing With the Stars” insider also told The Sun that the producers are not considering moving the show back to broadcast, but they do think it will take time to really know if the Disney Plus move is a success.
“Disney Plus will be our home next year, is what we have been told,” the source said, adding, “The move from ABC is going on as far as the executive team sees it, meaning they want to give viewers time to migrate over from their old home on terrestrial TV … They are calling it a journey, which they have said will take time and patience.”
But the source also said that the pros “enjoyed being on primetime ABC” and that “with a move back to ABC not being considered,” they are worried “that the alternative is the show being pulled.”
When ABC and Disney announced that “Dancing With the Stars” was moving to Disney Plus, they did give the show a two-season pick-up, which means both seasons 31 and 32 are greenlit. So perhaps they do feel that it will take two seasons to see how viewership numbers shake out.
“Dancing With the Stars” airs Monday nights at 8 p.m. Eastern and 5 p.m. Pacific time on Disney Plus.