How ‘Dancing With the Stars’ Seduced Gen Z With All the Right Social Moves
I go on set with Alix Earle, Dylan Efron, Jen Affleck & Co-EP Deena Katz to reveal how Disney marketing made a middle-aged show hot again
I cover the creator economy. I reported on creators launching FAST channels, the NIL gold rush for athlete-influencers and the Gen Alpha stars shaking up podcasting. Email me at natalie@theankler.com
Hello and happy Tuesday! Before I dive into this week’s newsletter, a quick PSA: Like & Subscribe will publish on Tuesdays going forward. Thanks for being a subscriber, and I look forward to hitting your inboxes a little bit earlier each week.
Some of you already might have a reason to look forward to Tuesdays: the fall television show that I can’t seem to escape, Dancing With the Stars. After 20 years (and 34 seasons) the reality competition series has managed to do something pretty remarkable — entice young people to watch good old-fashioned live TV on a schedule of the show’s choosing (not yours).
Viewership for last week’s episode hit a season high of 5.88 million same-day viewers (The Voice, for comparison, drew 4.81 million viewers on the same night and Survivor netted 4.23 million the next day — previous seasons of those two shows tied for top-rated reality series in 2024). The BBC Studios-produced show also hit a season high 1.26 rating in the 18-49 demo. And for the first time ever, DWTS has grown its audience in the three consecutive weeks following its premiere.
And audiences aren’t just watching. They’re voting, too. Last week’s Disney-themed episode, a celebration of Disneyland’s 70th anniversary, broke a record for the most votes ever, with more than 45 million.
When I started digging into the ratings resurgence for DWTS, which airs live at 8 p.m. ET on ABC and streams live on Disney+, I discovered that it can be tied directly to the show’s embrace of social media stars on platforms like TikTok — and producers’ willingness to experiment with the audience engagement tactics that digital-first creators have perfected. For many DWTS fans today, watching the show also means watching the dozens of TikTok videos and Instagram Reels posted all week long by the celebrity contestants and their pro dance partners, listening to the show’s official podcast and, perhaps, trying out the dances themselves for their own social media audience.
The cast promoted One Hit Wonders Night on DWTS’ official TikTok 👇🏼
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Last week I attended the live taping of that Disney-themed episode at Television City here in the heart of Los Angeles, and over the last several days I’ve spoken to people involved with DWTS — including co-executive producer and casting director Deena Katz, season 33 winner Joey Graziadei and current contestants Alix Earle, Whitney Leavitt, Jen Affleck and Dylan Efron — to take you inside the Mirrorball Trophy-worthy strategy that’s turned the long-running series into a Gen Z favorite.
Keep reading for the full breakdown on:
How Dancing With the Stars reinvented its casting playbook — and what it says about who counts as a “celebrity” now
The TikTok phenom who jump-started the show’s social-media era (and changed its audience overnight)
Why even social-media newbies are posting like pros between live shows — and how it’s helping them stay in the competition
The second-screen strategy that keeps fans in DWTS’ ecosystem all week
The staggering TikTok and Instagram numbers that have made DWTS the most social show this season
The dark side of all that attention — from fan pressure to online trolling
Disney’s multiplatform blitz to give more, more, more to viewers who “can’t get enough”
And how social media finally flipped the definition of “appointment TV”