America's Ballroom Challenge - coming to TV in 2009

reb

reb

Active Member
From the Ohio Star Ball website:

Once again, the Ohio Star Ball will be broadcast on PBS as the America's Ballroom Challenge. This year, America's Ballroom Challenge will be airing on February 25th, 2009 from 9-11 p.m. on PBS and the host for the show will be actress and singer, Jean Louisa Kelly. Ms. Kelly has a long list of credits as an actress and singer and further information can be found at her official web site:

http://www.jeanlouisakelly.com

Ron Montez will again be a co-host this year. You can find bios of both hosts on our Spotlight page. (Also listed is a policy on no personal recording during the Saturday evening events.) Please keep an eye on the PBS web site and the Ohio Star Ball web site for updated information when that is available.

PBS America's Ballroom Challenge Web Site:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/ballroomchallenge

For fun, this was a similar thread from two years ago:
http://www.dance-forums.com/showthread.php?t=15113&highlight=Challenge
 
I'm fine with less tv time if there's less filler. Hoping that in cutting it down, it's primarily filler that gets cut!
 
The taping is on Saturday night and that's the night of finals for Pro Rhythm, Smooth, Latin, and Standard, as well as a bunch of other stuff. See schedule for Sat night on OSB web site. I would guess show will be a little of everything, but I don't know for a fact. Will have to wait and see what they do. Note: In schedule, the TV open and close may not line up with what is in final show.
 
I don't know, but all four styles are still doing show dances, and there is a big light graphic "America's Ballroom Challenge" that they flashed around Exhibit Hall C from time to time Friday. So I'm thinking they will show all four. It would be kind of silly to do a "challenge" with only two competitors.

Showing a round of all five dances (four if it is smooth) is 10 mins x 4 styles = 40. Showing six showdances per style is another 10 x 4 = 40. Then there's the America's Best stuff, short and long programs, another 20 mins (?). There are 3 10 minute "special exhibition" sections to the program, plus the tv intro and the tv closing. Seems like it would be hard to cram this into one show, even if it were one 2 hour show. Huh.
 
That's too bad. I enjoyed watching that one year. Still, I can understand. If I, a social ballroom dancer, didn't have enough interest to watch it there really aren't too many watching it.
 
I have a feeling the current state of the economy has something to do with the show being cut back from 5 hours to 2 this year - remember, all PBS shows rely primarily on donations from viewers to stay afloat, and Aida Moreno (the producer of ABC) has said in interviews before that each year they struggle to come up with the funding for the show, but somehow always pull it off at the last minute. I have a feeling that people just didn't have as much spare income to give this year, which resulted in the show being whittled down from 5 hours to 2. But at least they didn't scrap the show altogether! :D
 
Anybody know if there is any information anywhere about Season 1? I missed that season and haven't been able to find a rerun. At least just wanted to see who the top 6 in each category were?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Dance Ads

Advertise on Dance Forums Reach dancers, teachers, studios, event organizers, and dance-friendly brands. View ad options
Back
Top