New season of show likely to premiere in March

On the heels of a hugely successful finale for the current season of "Dancing with the Stars," ABC is considering bringing the show back for another run in the spring.

The fourth edition of the show will likely premiere in March, ABC's Jeff Bader told attendees at an International Radio & Television Society event in New York Wednesday. When "Dancing" does come back, though, it may be in a different time period than the 8 p.m. Tuesday-Wednesday spots it occupied with great success this fall.

That's because the Tuesday spot would end up competing against FOX's unscripted heavyweight, "American Idol," which Bader calls a "tsunami." Because of that, he says ABC will likely move "Dancing" to other nights of the week, according to news accounts of the event.

The final episodes of "Dancing with the Stars" this week rang up the biggest audiences for any shows in the 2006-07 season thus far. Tuesday's last performance show drew 26.8 million viewers, and the crowning of Emmitt Smith as the season's winner on Wednesday beat that, with 27.2 million people tuning in.

Also at the gathering, NBC's head of scheduling, Mitch Metcalf, says his network will likely find a new home for its first-year drama "Friday Night Lights," which earlier this week received a full-season order. The series has found a loyal and relatively young, if small, audience on Tuesday nights, and NBC wants to nurture the show by keeping it out of the way of "Idol" come January.

Metcalf says there's a chance that another recently picked up show, "Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip," will move as well. NBC is expected to announce its midseason plans in the near future.