Entertainment

ABC says ‘DWTS: All Stars’ was a ‘mistake’

“Dancing with The Stars: All Stars” was a mistake, ABC admits.

“It turns out people like to see bad dancing as much as they like to see good dancing,” Paul Lee, the network’s head of programming, conceded Thursday.

“Clearly people love to see the journey as much as they love to see the competition.”

“If you pick only the winners — for which I take responsibility — they are all going to be great dancers,” he said.

“Dancing” — once the most watched show on television — shed 20 percent of its viewership during the fall experiment, prompting speculation the show would switch to a once-a-year schedule.

“We were obviously disappointed not to see the all star season of ‘Dancing’ do as strong as we would have liked,” Lee told television critics in Los Angeles, before confirming his plan to keep the ballroom open year-round.

“We absolutely will be casting it the way we normally do,” he added.

“We will promote it strongly. But there are 16 million people who watched it. We have got a fairly good base to start with. We think it is going to revitalize itself.”