Audiences love last tango in Invercargill

The ructions about Tim Shadbolt's continuing presence on Dancing with the Stars has done wonders for the show's ratings, which last Sunday reached a high of 832,700 viewers.

The first episode, on May 1, was watched by just over a third of the viewing audience (542,600 viewers), according to AGB Nielsen Media Research.

Since then, it has grown each week to last Sunday's high of nearly half of the audience.

The numbers are at nearly the same level as last year's NZ Idol final and the combined TV3 and Sky Sports audience of the Lions versus NZ Maori rugby game on Saturday night.

The ratings high followed a dirty week in the dancing world after controversy over Shadbolt.

His length of term - driven by public voting rather than the atrociously low scores by the judges - apparently surprised the Invercargill mayor more than anyone else.

But Shadbolt, no stranger to controversy, managed even to turn a dancing talent quest into an uprising when he received unfriendly mail suggesting he pull out.

Letters to the editor suggested Shadbolt risked turning the show from a true dancing competition into a farce and accused him of using his skills as a campaigner to rake in votes and compromise the integrity of the contest.

Shadbolt has since moved on, and this Sunday night will be performing as Baron Wasteland in a Jack and the Beanstalk pantomime in Tauranga.

As finalists Norm Hewitt and Shane Cortese practise for the last dance-off, Centrebet has the former All Black hot favourite to win the competition, in which money from public voting goes to charities. Hewitt is $1.33 to Cortese's $3. The odds are a reversal of the online betting agency's initial predictions, when Hewitt was languishing at $6.50 and Theresa Healey was the favourite at $2.50. Cortese was at $3.50.

A breakdown of the ratings reveals nearly half the viewers are over the age of 55.

There are 60,300 viewers in the 5 to 19-year-olds bracket, compared with 413,400 in the over 55s. The 40 to 54-year-olds are the next-biggest fans, with 172,300 viewers.

There is a slight skew towards females - overall, 480,500 females watched the ousting of Shadbolt last week, compared with 352,000 males.