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After nine years at Dancing With the Stars, showrunner Conrad Green is packing up his dancing shoes.
Green will exit ABC’s reality staple following its current 18th cycle and join Fox’s Utopia, The Hollywood Reporter has confirmed. Big Brother and The Amazing Race‘s Jon Kroll has also boarded the Fox social experiment.
STORY: ‘Dancing With the Stars’: ABC’s Aging Reality Show Tries to Skew Younger With Changes
“I’m enormously proud of everything we’ve achieved on Dancing With the Stars,” he said in a statement obtained by THR. “This has been the job of a lifetime and I’m thankful for every performance, every dancer and every colleague I’ve worked with over the years, and to ABC and BBC Worldwide Prods. for these past 18 seasons. What was once a small dancing show has thrived and become a cultural phenomenon. But after almost 10 years, the opportunity to take on a project with the immense potential of Utopia was simply too good to pass up. The ambition and scale of the challenge is thrilling. I’ll miss everyone I’ve worked with on Dancing With the Stars and look forward to this next exciting chapter.”
Green was among the producers to pitch the Dancing format to ABC. He’ll depart following the show’s May 20 season finale.
STORY: Fox Orders ‘Utopia’ From ‘The Voice’s’ John de Mol
Utopia, from The Voice‘s John de Mol, is based on the successful format in the Netherlands. The series puts 15 participants into a remote setting for an entire year and tasks them with creating their own civilization.
Green’s exit is the latest change this season at Dancing. In a bid to lure a younger audience and tickle its declining ratings, the veteran reality show added Fox Sports’ Erin Andrews and increased audience participation this season. Andrews replaced veteran co-host Brooke Burke-Charvet. Longtime bandleader Harold Wheeler was dismissed from the series and replaced by a smaller band led by Ray Chew with a focus on more current music.
A new showrunner has not yet been announced. Dancing has not yet been renewed for a 19th cycle, though it is expected to return.
Email: Lesley.Goldberg@THR.com
Twitter: @Snoodit
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