If you follow our Facebook Fan Page, you would have seen a post on January 1 from our sister site, IdolBlogLive.com, that Nigel Lythgoe had tweeted about FOX having cancelled the So You Think You Can Dance results show.

When I saw the news, my first thought was, “At least they will have another season.” It was followed immediately by, “And this may be the show’s last season.”

The cancellation of the results show does come as a shock to me, only because I had already seen the audition notices for several cities for the upcoming ninth season. I figured that FOX would give So You Think You Can Dance one more season and, after it got crushed in the ratings by the 2012 Summer Olympics, they would mercifully cancel the show for good. And I never thought FOX would break up the format like this, not after eight seasons for it.

So why the results cancellation and what does that mean for the show’s format?

The cancellation of the results show is a fairly easy one to figure out, even if I didn’t think it would happen by itself. The ratings for So You Think You Can Dance have fallen miserably over the last few years. When SYTYCD premiered in 2005, it averaged over 10 million viewers a week. Since then, the ratings have gone downhill, hitting bottom in 2009 during that disastrous decision FOX made to air the show during the fall season in an attempt to keep its TV-schedule consistent. The show rebounded a little bit when it moved back to its normal summer slot in 2010, but has only averaged a little over 5 million viewers each of the last two seasons. Even worse, the eighth season finale was down 9% from the seventh season finale.

And I’m sure that FOX was very aware of the fact that Canada’s CTV cancelled their version of the show back on September 13, just four days after the fourth season concluded. Ratings for that version were atrocious last season, falling 31% over the previous season.

Maybe cancelling SYTYCD’s results show will help save the show. After all, people may be likely to tune in if they only have to give one-night a week instead of two (not that the two nights a week seem to be hurting American Idol, America’s Got Talent, or Dancing with the Stars all that much right now).

Which brings us to the next point: What will the format of So You Think You Can Dance be this year? We don’t have any details yet, so all we can do is speculate for now.

The worst thing a show like SYTYCD can do is remove the public voting aspect of the show. Being able to vote for your favorites is what keeps a lot of people tuning in, and the sooner you allow the public to vote, the sooner they have an invested interest in watching. There are several ways the show could go about modifying their format without sacrificing the public vote.

One way to be ala Dancing with the Stars: Have the judges score each individual dancer, even if they are dancing as a couple with another contestant. Since the results wouldn’t be known until the following week, all the dancers would have to learn yet another dance, which the judges would then score. The two (or four dancers if the pace needs to be picked up) with the lowest combined total would go home at the end of that second show. The process could begin again the following week. The danger to such a format would be that America would only be voting once every other week. It’s possible that they may not take as much of an interest in the contestants if they aren’t voting every week.

Another way could be to adapt what So You Think You Can Dance has been doing in the early round for several seasons now: Let the judges make the final decision. On the results show, America’s votes would be revealed and three couples would find themselves in the Bottom 3. The contestants would then dance individually for the judges, who would then send one male and one female home each week. This could be adapted so that the results of America’s votes would be revealed the following week, with the couples that are safe being told so as they are brought out to dance their dance for that week. The final three couples left to be called out would be in the Bottom 3, and the judges would use their dance for that night to determine which couple(s) to send home. The dances of the couples who made it through that week would then be voted on by America, where the process would repeat itself next week. The downside is that America might get too confused and vote for the couple that got eliminated. You would almost have to give out numbers following each couple’s dance anyway, meaning that one or more couple’s numbers wouldn’t be used that night for America to vote.

Yet another possibility is to do what America’s Got Talent did during the last Summer Olympics, and may have to do again this summer: Call out the next couple to the stage to dance their routine, which would indicate that they were safe from the previous week. The final couple note called out would be the couple with the lowest number of votes and would be sent home. They could then dance the routine they worked on as their swan dance. This process wouldn’t confuse America since no numbers for the eliminated couple would be given out. The problem here, as with the previous two suggestions, is that the concept of the show is to find the best individual dancer, not the best couples dancer. At some point, the couples need to be mixed up in various ways, especially towards then end when the contestants will all dance with all the other remaining contestants.

To that end, using the All-Stars format of the previous two seasons might be the best idea. This would require a Top 12 to be announced prior to the voting rounds starting. Each of the Top 12 would be paired with an All-Star that week. After the show, America would vote while each contestant would be paired with a different All-Star for the following week. Any of the above methods could be used for elimination since each contestant would be judged individually, though letting the judges give a score that is combined with America’s votes might be the best option. This option would also allow the contestants to pair up with the other contestants in later rounds and could even allow America to vote each week instead of every other week.

Needless to say, Nigel Lythgoe has a lot of thinking to do between now and the beginning of the So You Think You Can Dance season at the end of May. I’m sure he will be exhausting all possibilities on what the format should be. And I’m sure that no matter what format he decides on, there will be people lined up against it. I may be one of them. We’ll just have to wait and see.

So what do you think about the cancellation of the So You Think You Can Dance results show? What about the contestant elimination conundrum the cancellation of the results show causes? What is the best way for the SYTYCD judges to eliminate contestants? Leave your thoughts in the comments section below.