Dancing with the Stars is hanging up its Tuesday night dancing shoes.
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Dancing with the Stars' eighteenth season is also expected to feature the same once-a-week broadcast format when it airs in early 2014.
The network made the announcement as part of Tuesday's unveiling of its 2013-2014 primetime schedule, which will include seven new dramas, five new comedies, and a new reality competition, The Quest.
"Dancing with the Stars -- we want to focus it in. We're planning to do two seasons [in 2013-2014], and we think that by taking the results show and building it into the two-hour block from 8-10PM on Monday night, we can really build a sense of occasion to that and drive viewership to Monday night. So we're focusing our energies on Monday," ABC president Paul Lee told reporters during a conference call.
According to Lee, ABC's decision to order thirteen new television series -- including Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the network's highly-anticipated The Avengers movie spinoff which will air Tuesdays at 8PM -- also played a role in the move to drop Dancing with the Stars' results show.
"We're giving Dancing a shot in the arm by including the results in our two-hour Monday telecast, and that opens up Tuesday in what I think is an incredibly strong development season," he said.
"We had very, very strong development this year. So, as I said, it allows us to put S.H.I.E.L.D. in at 8PM on Tuesdays, which we think is the perfect place for that show. So it's a one-two punch for us."
Lee declined to specify exactly how Dancing with the Stars' Monday night broadcasts will change to accommodate the inclusion of elimination results but suggested it will likely adopt a format similar to Fox's So You Think You Can Dance -- which dropped its standalone results show last summer, while still maintaining home viewer voting.
"I don't want to jump the gun because our guys and friends over at [Dancing with the Stars' production company] have a number of great ideas of this and we're going to announce later exactly how we're going to play it out," Lee told reporters.
"But certainly you're going to see the results combined into the two hours, and I think they'll look about how many contestants they want to have and what changes they're going to make. But we'll certainly come back to you with that. They've got some great ideas, I just don't want to jump the gun until they've nailed it."
The Quest, which is being produced by The Lord of the Rings movie franchise producer Mark Ordesky and The Amazing Race producers Bertram van Munster and Elise Doganieri, is scheduled to debut in midseason and air Sundays at 8PM when ABC's returning Once Upon a Time drama takes a hiatus.
The reality adventure competition will "take twelve lucky contestants on the journey of a lifetime when they enter the world of Everealm," a "fantastic world... where players will engage in epic challenges" and one player "emerges as a real-life hero," according to the network.
About The Author: Steven Rogers
