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December 06, 2005

BBC Dumps Dance Film Academy

The BBC has announced that the follow up to the Dance Film Academy that aired on BBC4 earlier this year has been cancelled. An announcement that should have surprised absolutely no one was met with great sadness by the hacks at Londondance.com.

Although we reported in April that the show had received less than 100,000 viewers, according to the Broadcast Audience Research Board (BARB), the dance community at large seemed a little surprised, when informed at a gathering in London entitled, without a hint of irony, "Dance Film Day", that the show was not being ordered for another year.

LD.com adopting their typically "disconnected from reality" mode said; "The project had planned to build on the success of last years Dance Film Academy". It is not clear how they are quantifying the programmes "success" when it received so few viewers and no publicity from the BBC to even admit the shows existence. The fact that the show has been cancelled will not make the newspapers and it is unlikely that dance makers will lament its passing.

Just to give you some form of comparison the drama show "Lost" which airs on US commercial network ABC attracts a steady audience of 19.9 million. The X-Factor on UK commercial network ITV attracts 7-8 million per week and more people watch the Pottery Channel™ (which we may have made up) than ever saw the Dance Film Academy!