Dance television network

[pygmalion]

Not that I want to whine, here, but why is there no dance television network? There's a food network, a weather network, a video game network, dozens of sports networks... and so on. So why no dance? Not necessarily ballroom or swing or whatever. Just dance. It could combine as many disciplines as necessary. Why no network? Don't we rate? :?

[SDsalsaguy]

What's even more offensive to me is the degree to which dance is totally neglected by the various "sports" networks. Now I'll be the first to agree that dance doesn't exactly fit many traditional understandings of sport, but give me a break here... I've seen Chess, Poker, Hot Rods, and even Spelling Bees on sports networks now. How in G-d's name is dance less of a sport than these??? :x :x :x

[Pacion]

Dancing is for wimps? :lol:


Disclaimer: I do not believe that! I love dancing more than Sabor and Scorpion Guy love to flirt :banana: Just feel like being mischievous :D

[Pacion]

The closest I have seen here is when Come Dancing has been on, showing various UK competitions. It had a regular slot on Monday evenings I believe it was, for about a month or more?

[pygmalion]

The thing is people would watch. Isn't that what's required to sell sponsorship for advertising? So what's up?

[Laura]

Exactly...it doesn't matter if anyone agrees that it's a sport or not. What matters is will the show pull in high enough ratings to make the advertisers happy.

By the way, a figure skating network is supposedly in the makings for cable, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[SDsalsaguy]

What matters is will the show pull in high enough ratings to make the advertisers happy.
So that leaves the questions : (1) do more people actually watch chess or spelling than would dancing, and (2) if not, why do the networks still seem to think that this is the case?

[Laura]

Production costs come into play too. How much does it cost to tape a spelling bee? Probably a lot less than a dance competition. You don't have to be able to get any tracking shots at a spelling bee, for instance.

Plus, networks in the US are required to air a certain amount of "news/educational" content each day, so maybe showing a spelling bee counts toward that...I notice the Food Network fulfills their requirement by showing "Good Eats" without commercials at like 3am.

[SDsalsaguy]

Plus, networks in the US are required to air a certain amount of "news/educational" content each day, so maybe showing a spelling bee counts toward that...
OK, so what about chess and hot rod shows? Although I guess your point regarding production costs would come into play with these too... :sigh:

[youngsta]

ESPN does show all those cheerleading competitions. Not a lot of cheering, but LOADS of dancing! :lol:

[pygmalion]

ESPN does show all those cheerleading competitions. Not a lot of cheering, but LOADS of dancing! :lol:

Hmm. There was a thread on that somewhere -- do cheerleaders dance, or something to that effect. I don't remember what the consensus was. :?

[etchuck]

Well, there are the artsy channels like Ovation, Bravo and A&E Arts (United States cable). They do occasionally show dancing, but it's mostly modern dance and not ballroom so far as I know. I'd say hit up these stations or women's focused networks (We, Lifetime for Women) and see if you can beg them to find a producer to cover these events.

[Laura]

Oxygen showed the IDSF World 10-Dance Championships about a year ago, they were taped at the 2003 Snow Ball Classic in Vancouver. NBC, Lifetime, and ESPN used to show dancesport competitions, but the ratings were never high enough for it continue. The "Good TV" network (a small US cable network predominantly in the southeastern US) used to show lots of dancesport competitions, including the Yankee Classic, Heritage, and the USDSC, but they stopped taping these in 2000 -- again due to the tradeoff between production costs and the amount of income the shows were generating. The sad truth is that dancesport has been tried on TV in the US and it just couldn't grab a big enough following. IMG, the same company that promotes figure skating, was involved, so it wasn't like a bunch of know-nothings in the field of sports broadcasting and promotion were trying to get things on the air. Dancesport just couldn't find an audience here. Suprisingly to some of us, chess, cheerleading, poker, hot rods, and spelling bees have. I don't know why, but there's over 280 million potential TV watchers in the US and only about 6000 USABDA-registered dancesport athletes. That's NOTHING in a country this size -- heck, there's probably 6000 chess players in New York City alone.