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Dancing With The Stars Will Return
« on: Jul 31st, 2005, 9:51am » |
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ABC: So we'll fix
'Dancing with Stars'
Vows a results night amid denials of rigged votes
By Toni Fitzgerald
The mark of a successful reality show is not how many people watch or how many people vote. It’s how many people complain.
And by that measure, ABC’s “Dancing With the Stars” has moved into the big leagues: It took Fox’s “American Idol” nearly a year to have its first voting controversy. It’s taken “Stars,” the summer's top new show, just two months.
That controversy bubbled over yesterday when the network, after a day of defending “Stars’” controversial ending at the Television Critics Association press tour, said it would add a 30-minute results show for the next edition of the program.
That should soothe viewers’ claims of vote-rigging after ABC soap star Kelly Monaco and partner Alex Mazo came from behind to win the competition earlier this month over former “Seinfeld” star John O’Hurley and partner Charlotte Jorgensen. From the start, the O’Hurley duo was considered the more impressive. And while Monaco did improve, it was a klutzy start. Could she have improved that much?
Message boards lit up with accusations that ABC tossed the competition, swinging the judges' votes to favor Monaco, because she starred on the network’s “General Hospital.” Others claimed soap fans had stuffed the ballot box. Monaco, appearing before reporters during Tuesday’s TCA session, tossed back this snotty retort.
“I am on a soap that [averages] 2.4 million viewers a day. We had almost 24 million people watching ["Dancing With the Stars"]. You do the math.”
ABC Entertainment president Stephen McPherson insisted Tuesday during his TCA presentation that the voting was legit. He said Monaco was the viewers’ favorite (not so surprising considering her skimpy outfits) and that the viewers' votes swung the contest in Monaco's favor, and would have done so no matter how the judges voted.
The viewers’ votes accounted for 60 percent of the final tally and the judges’ just 40 percent.
Many had objected to Monaco receiving a perfect 10 score from the judges for her final dance, when they declared her the most improved dancer.
The flaw in the system, it turns out, was that viewers were voting on the previous week. There was no separate results show. That meant that while judges evaluated the couples’ performances during the July 6 finale, the viewers’ votes were based on the previous week’s performances. Viewers did not get to vote on the finale performances.
ABC will remedy that by adding a results show that will enable viewers to vote for the most current week's performance, as does Fox's “American Idol.”
The network did not include one for the limited-run “Stars”because it was not sure the show would catch on. If it bombed, that meant ABC would have two timeslots per week bogged down by bad ratings instead of just one.
Even with the voting flap, Monaco has come out of this quite well. She will appear as guest star on ABC’s primetime hit “Desperate Housewives” when it returns this fall, or so goes the rumor.
O’Hurley, meanwhile, says that while he was very disappointed, he appreciates all the support he’s gotten from the many fans who say he should have won. He’s reported to be in talks for a new reality show.
And ABC has gotten a month’s worth of buzz for the show, which will return at midseason. The finale averaged more total viewers than the first-season finale of Fox’s “Idol,” which also aired in the summer.
“Dancing” is the summer’s highest-rated new show, averaging a 5.1 adults 18-49 rating and 16.8 million total viewers, the best summer show since CBS’s “Survivor” five years ago.
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