It's really baffling and makes me wonder if there is some polling information out there revealing that the American audience hates ice dance. Because it doesn't seem like a hard sell--here's the discipline that the North Americans are really good at, and that almost everyone trains for in Detroit.
I feel like it's based on past ratings of Ice Dance when the Russians were dominating the scene and people perceived Ice Dance judging as corrupt.
It's funny, my husband, who is not a big skating fan at all actually enjoys Ice Dance out of all the disciplines. People do like to watch dancing -- Dancing with the Stars is a big example of that. Also I have NO CLUE why people aren't playing up the DWTS connection with the top teams (well I guess it's because DWTS is on ABC and NBC prefers not to give it free advertising....but still!).