If you were laying out prop “bets” on your favorite social gambling site before the 2025-26 TV season technically began on which show would be showing the greatest degree of improvement you would have been hard-pressed to convince me to even drop four bits on Kalshi on DANCING WITH THE STARS.
I’ll admit Ive been biased against it for a long time, ever since I inherited arguably one of the dumbest off-network rerun acquisitions in history when I first joined GSN. Senior management, apparently desperate to make some sort of statement to advertisers after a series of first-run failures that paved the way for sweeping changes that fortunately included moi, dropped several million dollars to acquire reruns of the first 10 “seasons”, somehow ignoring the indisputably negative track record for reruns of a competition series. Much like primetime soap operas, if the goal of getting people to watch week after week is to see how something is resolved, once one knows that the intrigue is gone–and the higher the profile of the original, the less likely anyone who missed the original air will be drawn to seeing it in repeats. In the process, the opportunistic hucksters at Disney’s sales division somehow convinced said management that there were actually other networks seriously considering it (most def NOT true) and GSN wound up outbidding itself to come away with this lemon.
When I was handed the keys to it the network had actually agreed to schedule the reruns on a weekly basis in prime time, ostensibly to help cross-promote the ABC original airings–an unprecedented condition that handicapped any initial ability to deal with underperformance. To call it an underperformer would have been putting it mildly–ratings were less than half of the other older shiny floor games that occupied the balance of the week, and those familiar with GSN in that era know that wasn’t all that high a bar. I spent the better part of my first six months wrangling with their hucksters to extricate ourselves from this commitment and being unable to make a move to replace it with anything else since, lucky me, DWTS had eaten up just about our entire acquisitions budget for the year.
Yet the originals continued to be successful enough for ABC to continue it, eventually cutting back to one “season” per actual season despite the erosion and aging of its audience. By the end of the 2010s, the show had regressed enough for it to be relegated exclusively to Disney+, where the thought was a proven title even in decline would attract subscribers. And although such scheduling solved the perpetual nagging issue with any show involving live voting by eliminating a West Coast linear network feed the limited reach of the platform brought the show’s actual audience to a nadir (since nothing public was available at the time, we’re simply going on gut to make said assertion, but let’s just say my degree of experience would have me confidence enough to make that Kalshi bet).
Ah, but how that has all changed. After finding its way back to ABC in a dual-illumination simulcast as a result of need for programming that the pandemic and strikes necessitated–pretty much what they do with MONDAY NIGHT FOOTBALL–DANCING WITH THE STARS has not only reemerged, it is actually achieving the impossible –and kudos to THE ANKLER’s effervescent Natalie Jarvey for giving that news a megaphone in a piece she dropped on the site earlier this week:
After 20 years (and 34 seasons) the reality competition series has managed to do something pretty remarkable — entice young people to watch good old-fashioned live TV on a schedule of the show’s choosing (not yours). Viewership for last week’s episode hit a season high of 5.88 million same-day viewers (The Voice, for comparison, drew 4.81 million viewers on the same night and Survivor netted 4.23 million the next day — previous seasons of those two shows tied for top-rated reality series in 2024). The BBC Studios-produced show also hit a season high 1.26 rating in the 18-49 demo. And for the first time ever, DWTS has grown its audience in the three consecutive weeks following its premiere. And audiences aren’t just watching. They’re voting, too. Last week’s Disney-themed episode, a celebration of Disneyland’s 70th anniversary, broke a record for the most votes ever, with more than 45 million.
And I’ll confess I actually got swept up this past week after seeing teases from several friends in attendance at the live broadcast (unlike a majority of unscripted shows they actually still shoot with an audience in Los Angeles) that something special was going to unfold, which ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY’s Ryan Coleman sweetly captured:
Only Dancing With the Stars‘ Dedication Night could pull together a Boy Meets World reunion this big and boisterous. Season 34 contestant Danielle Fishel, who played Topanga Lawrence across the beloved sitcom’s series run, received the support of a massive number of her former castmates on Tuesday’s episode of the reality competition series. Dedicating her jive with pro partner Pasha Pashkov to everybody’s favorite teacher, Mr. Feeny (William Daniels), Fishel was cheered on by Will Friedle, Anthony Tyler Quinn, Betsy Randle, William Russ, Alex Désert, Trina McGee-Davis, Bonnie Bartlett, and Daniels himself.
Getting a 98-year-old like Daniels or a 96-year-old like Bartlett (his wife of nearly three-quarters of a century) to watch ABC primetime isn’t exactly dog-bites-man news. But as Jarvey astutely rattled off, it’s how the show has attracted both performers and fans of multiple generations that’s the secret to this success:
I discovered that it can be tied directly to the show’s embrace of social media stars on platforms like TikTok — and producers’ willingness to experiment with the audience engagement tactics that digital-first creators have perfected. For many DWTS fans today, watching the show also means watching the dozens of TikTok videos and Instagram Reels posted all week long by the celebrity contestants and their pro dance partners, listening to the show’s official podcast and, perhaps, trying out the dances themselves for their own social media audience.
Indeed, a deeper dive into the numbers via the reliable USTVDB.com shows that the October 7th episode actually eclipsed the 18-49 delivery of last November’s season finale–by a significant +12%. Yes, some of that is due to Nielsen’s ballyhooed Big Data Plus Panel enhancement, but the fact it airs on a streamer more likely to be watched on previously unmeasured devices akin to a sports event makes DWTS all the more uniquely capable of benefiting from it among entertainment offerings. And an ABC press release posted on THEFUTONCRITIC.com points out that those viewers are second-screen engaged as well, citing my old friends at Talkwalker (nee Nielsen Social) to remind that Dancing with the Stars” was the No. 1 most social television program across broadcast and cable, earning 2.3 million total social interactions. I used to brag about shows with a tenth of that number, so I can assure you that is closer to dog-bites-man news.
Moreover, what they’re talking about is now becoming breaking news in a manner typically reserved for the more socially zeitgeist and politically charged shows out there in streamerland, with DEADLINE’s ever-ebullient Lynette Rice on the beat, corroborating Jarvey’s discovery in the process:
I’d like to devote this week 5 recap to all the Gen Zers who have dutifully followed Robert Irwin and the rest of the Dancing with the Stars competitors on TikTok. I may have dragged the specially themed night two weeks ago, but credit must be given to that (otherwise pestiferous) platform. The kids like sharing videos and chewing the fat over the latest episode of DWTS, just like olden days when we used to gather around the 20th century watercooler to talk about the last night’s Lost…Another record-breaking night for votes; the show exceeded 50 million! There was good news all around; no one went home on Dedication Night.
And with NBC effectively bowing out of the battle for entertainment viewers by pivoting to live NBA games as of this coming Tuesday night–a sizable audience of its own to be sure but clearly not a Venn diagram overlap with DWTS–the potential for this season to the most successful of this decade in traditional metrics–and perhaps of all time in the non-traditional ones–looms large.
I mean, how many shows in their third decade of existence can bring together nonogenerians, TikTokers, folks addicted to live tapings and moi into the same virtual communal tent at once? Let alone get me to finally forgive and forget how much I used to despise the very mention of it?
Now THAT’ qualifies as dog-bites-man news in my book.
Until next time…