‘The Next Pro’ Waltzing To L.A.? BBC Studios Eyes Production Move For ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Spinoff

EXCLUSIVE: Dancing with the Stars is a Hollywood fixture, and the team behind The Next Pro wants the spinoff to join its parent show in Los Angeles. Deadline understands that BBC Studios is looking to move production of the ABC summer hit to California after its first season was shot in Australia. The company has filed the paperwork for a California tax credit and is in Phase 2 of the application process as it plans for a second season of the show. If successful, it would be a boon for the L.A. production community, which has seen multiple shows move out of the city to cut costs with American Idol becoming the latest big-budget series to move from L.A. to Georgia. Dancing with the Stars, which premiered in 2005, has filmed all 35 seasons of the show in Los Angeles. Watch on Deadline Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro featured twelve up-and-coming professional dancers who moved into one house and competed in an audition process in order to win a spot as a pro dancer on Season 35 of the long-running ABC series. RELATED: NYC Production Boom Sees Permits And Spending Surge, Sound Stages Max Out: “We Are Bursting At The Seams” The show is hosted by Robert Irwin with three-time Mirrorball champion Mark Ballas and his mother Shirley Ballas, who is the head judge on British OG format Strictly Come Dancing, as judges. Adele Zaikman won the series and joined DWTS, which is currently in the middle of its run. The Next Pro was shot in Brisbane, largely in the Thomas Dixon Centre, the home of the Queensland Ballet. The first season of the show employed around 110 local cast and crew and contributed an estimated A$7.2M ($5M) to the local Australian economy, per Screen Queensland. The ABC series became a hit when it premiered in July, debuting to 5.3M viewers after three days across ABC, Disney+ and Hulu. It was the Disney network’s strongest summer series debut since July 2020. The idea is now to bring production to the United States for a potential season two. BBC Studios is hoping to receive the California tax credit before putting together a budget for a second season, ahead of talks with ABC. It is believed that the credit approval allocation date for the next round of funding is November 16, but it may take a bit longer to find out the full results. Sources cautioned that the show has not yet officially been renewed for a second season and there are several other factors that could impact its future, but the plans are a positive sign for the spinoff. If it manages to achieve this, it is believed that it would be only the second unscripted show to receive the credit, after Schooled!, Netflix’s upcoming science competition series hosted by YouTuber Mark Rober and produced by Jimmy Kimmel’s Kimmelot and Rober’s CrunchLabs. This comes after the California Film & Television Jobs Act, otherwise known as California Assembly Bill 1138, was signed in to law in 2025 by Governor Gavin Newsom, expanding the tax credits system to include unscripted shows for the first time. While it only includes “large-scale competition shows”, The Next Pro would certainly fit that criteria, particularly given that the California Film Commission states that 15% of the tax credit budget is allocated to relocating television series. Such a move would also be a positive sign for the unscripted community in LA, which has seen shows such as The Masked Singer move to New Jersey and America’s Got Talent is also eyeing a move to Georgia, alongside its Fremantle sibling American Idol. In July, it emerged that on-location production in LA was down 13% from the previous year, per FilmLA. Reality shows were hit even harder with a 40% drop in the second quarter of the year. Dancing with the Stars: The Next Pro is exec produced by Conrad Green, who serves as showrunner, Ryan O’Dowd, Krystal Whitney, Alex Cross and Jenny Groom. Deena Katz and Quinn Lipton are co-executive producers.