Dancing with the Stars is the name of a group of international television series based on the format of the British TV series Strictly Come Dancing, which is distributed by BBC Worldwide - the commercial arm of the BBC. Currently the format has been licensed to more than 30 countries, Australia was the first country to adapt the BBC show, and versions have also been produced in the United States with "Dancing with the Stars (Dancing with the Stars (U.S. TV series))", Argentina, Austria, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Brazil, Bulgaria, Chile, China, Croatia, The Czech Republic, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, India (Jhalak Dikhhla Jaa), Israel, Italy, Japan, Latvia, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Poland, Romania, Russia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sweden, and Ukraine. As a result, this contest became the worlds most popular television program among all genres in 2006 and 2007, according to the magazine Television Business International, reaching the Top 10 in 17 countries. The show pairs a number of celebrities with professional ballroom dancers, who each week compete by performing dances. These are then given scores by a panel of judges. Viewers are given a certain amount of time to place votes on their favorite dancers, either by telephone or (in some countries) by the Internet. The couple with the lowest combined score (judges plus viewers) is eliminated, and continue in the next week. This process continues until there are only two or three couples left, at which point one couple is declared the champion.

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