10/2 DWTS Results Show Discussion **West Coast Spoilers**

Quote:

Originally Posted by KatesMom

Given how many people voted for her last time, and how many appear to be voting for her this time, I think it was a no-brainer to TPTB. Here's the flaw I see in their plan: from what I remember about Bristol's season, people were voting for her that were not watching the show. TPTB have one goal and that is to get people to watch, so they want the contestants that are going to get people to watch. But with Bristol, people were voting for her without watching. So she still gets the crazy votes, but I'm not sure that helped viewership at all. In fact, it may hurt it because of how irritated longtime viewers were the last time she was on and the craziness that resulted.

That's a good point. I also remember the controversy over whether everyone who was voting for Bristol last time was actually watching the show. Add to that the vote for the worst bloc which seems to be voting for Bristol this time--and who may or may not be watching the show--and having her on may or may not really be a boost to the ratings. The ratings don't count how many votes the dancers get. The ratings count how many Nielsen viewers are tuning in--and that's what determines whether a show sticks around or not. Well, that and how expensive the show is to produce, as a show with slightly fewer viewers that's a lot less expensive to produce might be renewed over one with slightly more viewers but that's more expensive to produce. I don't know how expensive DWTS is to produce, but since they have to pay the "stars" something just for appearing, and I'd think it would be more than the standard fare for unknown reality contestants, and they have to pay judges, hosts, singers/band, royalties for the music etc., I would guess it's fairly expensive to produce compared to some reality shows.