‘Dancing With the Stars’ Showrunner Details Plan to “Flood the Zone With Content”

Dancing With the Stars is incoming in 3, 2, 1 (September 15, to be exact) and the show is planning to be alllll over your social feeds. Showrunner Conrad Green spoke to Entertainment Weekly about the strategy, saying that last year, “We had the highest share of young audience since the Friends finale in 2004.”

The success of Season 34 was partly “lightning in a bottle” thanks to “so many memorable, standout characters, stories, performances,” but DWTS producers went ahead and analyzed the successful year in an attempt to recreate it.

“It’s clear we’ve managed to engage a new, younger audience, which is really hard to do,” Green said, explaining that the show’s new social strategy involves “getting all of our casts to engage much more in social media, post a lot, and flood the zone with content.”

He added that “Though the bulk of the show stays the same, you don’t ever want it to be something where everyone’s like, ‘I’ve seen that before.’” The key is “Continue to surprise, engage people, good storytelling, lots of warmth, lots of fun, lots of razzle-dazzle, beautiful people doing crazy things and working hard. What’s not to love in a world that’s pretty bleak at the moment?”

This falls in line with previous reports that the show is now requiring their celebs and pros to use TikTok to engage with viewers and keep the votes up—to the point where some prospective cast members walked. More on that below!