Strictly Come Dancing's TikTok Strategy Falls Flat With Viewers
The BBC show's partnership with the social media platform has failed to attract a new, younger audience as hoped.
Strictly Come Dancing's initiative to integrate TikTok into its current series has not yielded the desired results, with early indications suggesting the strategy has fallen flat with fans and failed to attract a new audience.
The BBC show partnered with the video-sharing platform, hoping to engage younger viewers by featuring celebrities and dancers with significant TikTok followings, such as social media personality John Nellis (2.6 million followers) and former Love Islander Cach Mercer (1.3 million).
The expectation was that this audience would then tune in to watch the show on Saturday and Sunday nights. This approach mirrored the strategy of Strictly's U.S. sister show, Dancing With The Stars, which saw considerable ratings growth among younger demographics by fully incorporating TikTok into its programming. Last year, that show experienced an 118% year-on-year increase in viewership among under-35s, with content creator Alix Earle garnering 30 million views for videos related to a themed episode.
However, videos posted by Nellis and Mercer on the "StricTok" platform have not achieved similar success. Nellis's first-week performance attracted 411,000 views, but this number steadily declined, with his latest dance garnering only 79,000 views. Mercer's initial dance received 544,000 views, dropping to 496,000 for his most recent performance.
The most significant viral moment on the show's TikTok presence was a live performance of "Babydoll" by Jamie Miller and Antonio Cipriano, which achieved 3.3 million views. Despite this, most content on the official Strictly TikTok page receives between 20,000 and 150,000 views.
Meanwhile, the traditional television audience for Strictly Come Dancing has remained largely consistent with the previous year. The show continues to be a significant draw, ranking as the third most-watched program in the second week of October, behind The Traitors. The most recent Saturday episode garnered 5.1 million viewers, with the launch show attracting 5.3 million. However, this represents a slight decline from 2025, when the first live show drew 5.4 million viewers, marking the smallest opening audience since 2007.
Analysis from Alex Bryson, an analyst with Pulsar, suggests that while the social media stars are generating engagement on their preferred platforms, this is not translating into increased viewing figures for the television broadcast. Bryson hypothesizes that the communities following these creators may not significantly overlap with the typical Strictly audience.
A spokesperson for the BBC stated that the show has a long history of embracing digital platforms and expressed confusion over the article's focus on TikTok, emphasizing Strictly's strong overall viewing figures and social engagement.