Strictly Come Dancing's Claudia Winkleman confirms huge BBC shake-up as viewers complain

Claudia Winkleman brought news of a major shake-up on Strictly Come Dancing, just moments into Saturday's live show, with a format change that promised to have a huge impact on couples' scores.

After heading off to the seaside for its Blackpool special last week, the BBC programme and its stars were back on familiar turf for the week 10 live broadcast, with just seven pairs now left in the running for the Strictly Glitterball this year. Before any of this year's remaining celebs and their pro partners performed their routines for the judges and millions at home on Saturday night's Strictly, Claudia and colleague Tess Daly had a big announcement to make.

In every other week so far this series, the show ends after the final couple in action has had their scores from the judges, the leaderboard gets revealed and the voting opens. However, that wasn't the case on November 23, with Claudia confirming that all seven couples left in the competition would be taking part in a mass sambathon, that would see them battle against each other to come out on top with the judges.

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The last time such a contest was held on Strictly, was in 2018, when a lindy-hop caused chaos as head judge Shirley Ballas and her colleagues struggled to deliver their scores. That was something picked up on by Claudia as the sambathon was teased during last week's results show and, revealing all, she remarked: "After all their individual dances, all of the couples will take to the couple at the same time. The judges will be scoring, so it's an opportunity to turn tghe leadeboard and, indeed the entire show, on its head."

It took just seconds fr viewers at home to react on X, with many dubbing the sambathon 'pointless' or a way of encuring certain couples get better scores, Making their complaint, one critic reacted: "Ugh the SambaThon sounds like a dreadful idea" as another wrote: "(dis)respectfully, f**k the sambathon"