Should Dancing with the Stars only air one season a year?

Monday night marks the premiere of Dancing with the Stars season 26, but it would be perfectly acceptable if you were, for whatever reason, to not realize that at all. This athletes-only season is not drawing the publicity of others in the past and there are a few reasons for that.

For starters, there is the base premise of this season itself: The same ballroom competition without the same variance of personalities. It’s also significantly shorter due to American Idol taking up a huge chunk of the spring schedule. We understand not wanting to air the season into the summer, but what’s the point of doing a dance competition like this for less than a month? What does that accomplish? For these contestants, who including the likes of Josh Norman, Adam Rippon, Tonya Harding, and others, it does basically hand them a less-exciting version of the show with less exposure. Meanwhile, for fans there’s less time to be invested.

It does feel like it’s time to raise a question that has been here and there in the past, but not so much at CarterMatt: Is it time for Dancing with the Stars to move to just one season a year? This is what the UK does with Strictly Come Dancing, and there is some incentive in going through with this move.

For starters, less can sometimes be more. We do think over time one of the things that has hampered Dancing with the Stars is that it doesn’t feel as much like a special event. There’s just so much of it on over a year that by the time a new season starts, there hasn’t been enough time to miss the old one! Going down to an annual season in the fall alleviates that, while also giving us as viewers a chance to really get a full, proper season rather than one that feels rushed and like an afterthought on the schedule. It could actually keep the show on the air longer.

There’s also some evidence that this can work. One of the shows that really excels in an annual format is America’s Got Talent and there is something that this series can learn from that.

One last thing to consider: Won’t this give Dancing with the Stars a better crop of stars overall if they can consolidate good ones into an annual format? There are typically a couple per season we don’t know at all, and that’s coming from someone who works in the entertainment field.

Do you think that it’s time for Dancing with the Stars to go down to a once-a-week format? Share right now in the comments!

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