'People do want to watch something great and together...' Anton Du Beke shares secret to Strictly Come Dancing
Anton Du Beke says 'Strictly Come Dancing' shows that a live TV show can still work and bring in millions of viewers, despite comeptition from social media and streaming services.
Anton Du Beke says 'Strictly Come Dancing' still shows the power of an event TV show that's for the entire family.
The 58-year-old judge is aware that TV watching habits have changed enormously over the past decade due to streaming services and video hosted on social media.
But Anton says the last series of the BBC One ballroom show - which was won by comedian Chris McCausland - proves that people will still tune in to show live when it is must-watch like 'Strictly Come Dancing'.
Speaking on the 'My Time Capsule' podcast, he said: “This last series we’ve just had, I think, has been the best one we’ve ever had. All power to it. It is a brilliant show.
“Television has evolved through the decade, in its form it’s a hugely powerful medium but it’s so different.
“I don’t think it’ll be long now until scheduled television will be a thing of the past. So to have a show like 'Strictly Come Dancing', which has to be a scheduled show because you want the audience to vote and sit together and watch the show, it’s unbelievable that it’s still going now in this current climate and as strongly as it is.
“People do want to watch something great that they can watch together. That has always been that unicorn thing that everybody wants to watch together.”
Former professional dancer Anton accepts that live viewing figures are not as high on 'Strictly Come Dancing' as they were when it began 20 years ago, but the audience share that the programme commands is proof of its enduring popularity.
He added: "They used to have this thing called viewing figures and everybody was hung up about viewing figures. That was fine when you had four channels or five channels, you could get a general idea of who was watching what. Now you’ve got hundreds of channels and most of them are streaming channels, you can’t. So they still get those figures but they’re just of less important. The one that is vitally important now one is audience share. Which is basically the percentage of people watching the telly at that time. So if you’ve got 10 million people watching TV at that time and eight million are watching your show or four million are watching your show, once upon a time that would’ve been deemed not great. But in actual fact it’s extraordinary.
"'Strictly Come Dancing' tops the ratings of that poll at something like 50 and 54 percent. At one stage during the final over 60 percent of people were watching 'Strictly Come Dancing'. It’s absolutely extraordinary, and I’m absolutely delighted about that."
