A fourth judge and a former president are two ideas being tossed around for the retooled version of “Dancing with The Stars.”
“We are just starting to figure it out now,” producer Deena Katz told The Post moments after this week’s live finale in LA.
ABC is scrapping the original Tuesday-night result show, signaling the start of the show’s first extreme makeover in eight years.
“Bring in someone like JLo to judge us,” longtime pro Karina Smirnoff says. “To give a little bit of a new criticism, a new perspective.
“I think four judges. ‘American Idol’ has four. ‘The Voice’ has four.”
It remains uncertain which of the show’s current judges will return.
Carrie Ann Inaba, Len Goodman and Bruno Toniolo do not have contracts for next season yet, according to multiple sources.
It is also uncertain which professional dancers will be back. Official invitations are not extended until celebrity casting is complete, sometimes just weeks before the start of the season.
Losing one show a week will not affect the pro dancers’ paychecks, Smirnoff says.
“We get paid by the week,” she says. “What [the schedule change] will do is give us an extra day of rehearsals — which is a good thing because you never have enough days.”
The biggest challenge is figuring out how to revamp voting and eliminations, Katz admits.
“For the audience members, we want to have a beginning, a middle and an end,” she says. “I think that is exciting. It will make it so that you have to watch that particular night.”
“When I first heard [that the Tuesday results show was being eliminated], if I am honest, I was like ‘What do you mean? Why are you changing the format?’” says dancer Sharna Burgess, who partnered this season with fan-favorite comedian Andy Dick.
“But the more I hear [executive producer] Conrad Green talk about it, I am really, really excited.”
ABC execs indicated too they are likely to keep casting personalities like this week’s runner-up Zendaya Coleman, who help lower the show’s median viewer age.
An exception, Katz hints, is former president Bill Clinton — whom producers have been openly soliciting for years but who has eluded them so far.
“He will get an offer every season,” she says. “Every season.”