Strictly Come Dancing ratings crisis as it loses out to Great British Bake Off...what went wrong?

Strictly is suffering its biggest ratings crisis yet and I’m not remotely surprised.

A string of blunders by the producers have caused plenty of viewers to switch off.

For years the dance contest was the biggest show on the box. It even killed off ITV rival The X Factor. It was untouchable.

Not so long ago it was easily pulling in eight million viewers every week and at times it was topping 10 million viewers.

But after a controversial revamp following the exit of hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman, it has lost its place as the most-watched show of the autumn.

In fact, it’s only just making the top five these days as ratings slump.

Stats for the first week of October show Strictly was beaten by three other formats.

As you’d expect, The Celebrity Traitors is doing the best, taking first and second place in the ratings charts. Next up is The Great British Bake Off. But what’s really telling is Strictly is also being beaten by a new drama on ITV, The Blame, which stars Michelle Keegan.

This will be panicking the top brass at the BBC - Strictly is no longer a guaranteed ratings winner for them.

But it’s not hard to see why ratings are dropping given there have been so many bizarre decisions.

The line-up is packed with supposed celebrities who most of us haven’t heard of.

EastEnders actress Lacey Turner is the only real household name. Some of them are so obscure that it’s laughable.

Hiring Josh Widdecombe and former Strictly pro dancer Johannes Radebe to be hosts is also a mind-boggling decision.

They’re both lovely and very popular, but they haven’t got any experience presenting a high profile light entertainment show. It’s anyone’s guess why Strictly bosses decided to give such key roles to novices.

Some are saying we should give them time to warm up and get used to hosting. Why? A show as big as Strictly shouldn’t be treated like some sort of work experience for amateurs, it deserves seasoned professionals.

Not that long ago it was helmed by the iconic Sir Bruce Forsyth, but now it has two presenters who are like rabbits in headlights. It’s just not good enough.

Another bonkers move was to ditch so many popular pro dancers. Karen Hauer, Gorka Márquez, Nadiya Bychkova, Luba Mushtuk, and Michelle Tsiakkas were all dropped and it’s not obvious why.

PR guru Mark Borkowski reckons the show isn’t moving with the times and has suffered from having so much scandal.

He said: “Strictly hasn’t suddenly become a bad television programme. Its problem is rather more fundamental.

“It’s become a bit of a cliche eroded by to many bad headlines For years, Strictly was an extraordinary piece of television alchemy. It took celebrities, sprinkled them with sequins, and turned their journey into old school Saturday night ritual. It was appointment television.

“But the culture has moved on. The Traitors producers understands something that Strictly increasingly doesn’t: modern audiences want unpredictability, psychological warfare, genuine jeopardy and moments that explode across social media.

“Strictly has become a beautifully polished machine, but it’s lost its allure and the reboots have not cut it.

“There’s also a wider problem with celebrity. The word itself has been devalued. The traditional celebrity hierarchy has collapsed. Putting a collection of vaguely recognisable faces into glittery costumes no longer guarantees national fascination.

“As I said, we can’t ignore the reputational damage from the controversies surrounding the show. Strictly was once television’s great comfort blanket.

“When stories emerged about what was happening behind the scenes, some of that innocence evaporated. You cannot manufacture joy indefinitely if audiences begin to suspect the backstage reality is rather less joyful.”

Other experts reckon Strictly has failed to stay on top of ratings because of The Celebrity Traitors.

As TV Critic Ian Hyland wryly stated on X: “Almost 9m for the first episode of #TheCelebrityTraitors on BBC1 last night. And now we know who the first murder victim was: Strictly Come Dancing.”

Fans are convinced it's the hosts who are the problem, with one saying: “We watched the first episode. Started the second but stopped after 20 mins or so as couldn’t cope with it any longer - not watched it since.

“The male presenters are not to our liking , we don’t know many of the celebrities, many of the judges over mark. We’ve moved on now.”

How to fix it? Borkowski reckons Strictly producers need to be bold to get the show back on track.

He said: “The BBC’s instinct will probably be to polish the format, find bigger names and turn up the glitter. That’s precisely the danger. You cannot solve cultural fatigue with another bucket of sequins.

“What Strictly needs is a creative rebellion. Surprise us. Break some of the rules. Find genuinely fascinating personalities rather than simply familiar ones. Restore the sense that something extraordinary, unscripted and potentially chaotic might happen.

“The great television formats survive by reinventing themselves before the negativity kills.”