‘Dancing With The Stars’: Why Can The Rest Of The World Get It So Right When Australia Can’t?


I have been a long time fan of Dancing With The Stars. I have a vested interest after all; I spent more than 22 years of my life in the ballroom dancing scene. However, as I pointedly ignored the season premiere last week of the Australian version of Dancing With The Stars, it got me to wondering why the rest of the world takes this show so seriously and yet Australia seems to throw every obstacle at their program.

With the finale of Dancing With The Stars topping the ratings chart in New Zealand last week, a 10-year anniversary event in the U.S. currently drawing in crowds and the likes of Caitlyn Jenner potentially being offered a place on the upcoming U.S. version, it seems the overseas versions of Dancing With The Stars are instant winners. Not so for the Australian version, though.

Dancing With The Stars premiered in Australia in October of 2004. Its debut was so successful that for the first four years of its life, the program ran twice a year (excluding the very first season which premiered too late in the year). Dancing fans got behind the program and debated every dance step (and misstep) on the popular forums board on the Dancing With The Stars website. Experts and newbies alike joined in heated debate and the professional dance partners were just as revered as the celebrities.

The original panel was made up mostly from people in the industry. Two of the judges were repeated dancing champions in their fields. Another had grown up in theater and knew several styles of dance. The co-host, Sonia Kruger was not only a ballroom champion, but had starred in Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, alongside another of the judges, Paul Mercurio. The professional dancers were both personable and knowledgeable.

However, over the years, while Dancing With The Stars has been continually successful in the U.S. and the UK (where the show was originally conceived), Australia seems to have shot itself in the foot in relation to this rating success.

For many, the downhill slant started when Mark Wilson was dropped unexpectedly from the judging panel. Wilson was a long time ballroom dancer and a fan favorite along with the other expert judge, Helen Ritchie. Both judges were considered the final opinion on the technicalities of the dances involved on Dancing With The Stars, Ritchie in the Latin styles and Wilson in ballroom. Mark Wilson was replaced by Joshua Horner, a judge so abrasive that fans took an instant disliking to him.

Dancing With The Stars in Australia started with compere Daryl Somers, who was well known as a presenter in Australia for his long established program, Hey, Hey It’s Saturday. However, many likened his dated humor to nothing more than “bad dad jokes.” His replacement by the younger Daniel MacPherson was seen as a step in the right direction. Unfortunately, this year, MacPherson unexpectedly quit and was replaced by another version of Daryl Somers, Shane Borne. It was at this point that I decided to not even tune into the premiere of season 15 of Dancing With The Stars last week. Fans hit Twitter on the first night to show their displeasure to the return of the “dad jokes”compere style.

Dancing With The Stars Australia promo pic 3

Over the years, the Australian version of Dancing With The Stars has seen many missteps. Professional dancers who didn’t know the styles danced, moments when judge, Todd McKenney, was even more abrasive than Joshua Horner, questionable “celebrity status” choices, and cringe-worthy moments where celebrity stars either made it known they didn’t really want to be there or danced badly in an effort to get voted off. But why is Australia different to the rest of the world when it comes to Dancing With The Stars?

Perhaps it has to do with the long-held Aussie tradition of knocking the underdog, of not being proud of the country’s achievements. After all, there is a reason why so many Aussie actors turn up on the shores of the U.S. In Australia, not only is there not enough work, but the stars have often had to cop harsh criticism from the Australian audience. There also seems to be the perpetual notion that Australians won’t accept their own success until the U.S. does. This is most notable in the fact that the U.S. version of Dancing With The Stars has snapped up some of Australia’s professional dancers, including the likes of Kym Johnson and Sasha Farber.

So where does this leave Season 15 of the Australian version of Dancing With The Stars? Considering the show is still here after 11 years on the air, it just might be able to work through the massive ratings drop that has seen the show premiere at only 778,000 viewers. This is well down on the 1.04 million who watched the debut of Dancing With The Stars last year in Australia. And with people still queuing up to get free tickets to the live shows, there may still be hope for this show yet.

Are you a fan of Dancing With The Stars? Let us know by commenting below!

[Image credit: Channel 7 / Yahoo!7]

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