ABC may be passing on the paso doble for a while.
“Dancing With the Stars” is talking about airing just once each year, in the spring, a production source tells The Post.
“They have to figure something out,” the insider says. “Maybe change the judges. The show needs a total makeover.”
After 15 editions since 2005, the once-top-rated talent show took a beating in the ratings during its “All-Star” season, which ended last month.
The finale drew 16.7 million viewers — a huge audience by most TV standards, but down almost three million from a year ago.
Total viewership for the past season was off by 20 percent.
Bringing back past champs Shawn Johnson, Emmitt Smith, Drew Lachey and the like seemed like “a great idea,” Disney CFO Jay Rasulo admitted this week at a financial conference in New York.
“Turns out people didn’t want to see people who could dance. They wanted people who couldn’t dance,” Rasulo said.
”We haven’t made a decision about fall yet,” an ABC spokeswoman said last night, “but we have no indication that it won’t be on the schedule.
“Dancing” is set to return with a new edition on March 18.
Former “Bachelorette” Emily Maynard is among the celebrities set to compete, according to reports published this week.
Unlike “American Idol” and “America’s Got Talent,” “Dancing” has undergone few changes in its seven-and-a-half-year run.
But lately, the show appears to be headed toward an inevitable changing of the guard. In September, longtime pro Maksim Chmerkovskiy announced that he will not return after his contract expires in 2013.
Cheryl Burke also told The Post that she may take time off to pursue reality TV.
And after finishing in second place with partner Johnson this season, three-time champ Derek Hough sounded like he was done, as well.
“There’s so much I want to do,” he revealed backstage. “Ten seasons of this . . . I’ve won three times. I feel like it’s conquered — and now on to the next.”
It is also unclear how much longer judges Len Goodman and Bruno Tonioli will be interested in commuting weekly between LA and London, where they appear on “Strictly Come Dancing.”
“I would say making this show is more like surfing,” executive producer Conrad Green told The Post. “Everyone thinks you are a puppet master. But actually what you do is you follow the wave, rather than set the wave.”.