What time is Dancing with the Stars on is the question viewers will keep asking, but the fixed answer on the schedule is clearer than the airtime: season 35 begins Sept. 15 and Sept. 16 with a two-night premiere. Alfonso Ribeiro returns as co-host, with Julianne Hough beside him, as the show resets for another run after more than two decades on TV.
The launch matters because it splits the opening into Premiere: Night One and Premiere: Night Two, and each night ends with one celebrity eliminated. That gives the opening week a sharper competitive edge than a single kickoff episode and makes the premiere itself part of the elimination count, not just a showcase.
Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough
Alfonso Ribeiro and Julianne Hough are back as co-hosts for season 35, while Carrie Ann Inaba, Bruno Tonioli and Derek Hough return as judges. The setup keeps the core on-air structure intact, which is the kind of continuity networks usually want when a long-running competition series is trying to hold its audience between seasons.
The show first debuted in 2005, so season 35 is not a relaunch so much as a schedule reset for a format that has already lasted more than two decades. Conrad Green described that broader role in August: “The celebrity world, all of media, are so fragmented with all these different groups,” and “We're a way of trying to bring it together, and just the unifying thing is that effort and positivity, the attempt to create something.”
Sept. 15 and Sept. 16
Sept. 15 and Sept. 16 are the only dates viewers need to mark for the premiere, and the show does not stop there. After those two nights, new episodes air every Tuesday on ABC and Disney+, which makes the premiere a bridge into a weekly cadence rather than a one-off event.
That weekly pattern is also where the practical problem shows up: the schedule names the days and the platforms, but it does not give the exact airtime for the premiere nights or the Tuesday episodes. For viewers planning their night around the show, the day is set; the clock is the missing piece.
Night One and Night Two
Premiere: Night One and Premiere: Night Two do more than open the season. One celebrity will be eliminated at the end of each night, so the first week immediately changes the cast list and narrows the field before the regular Tuesday cycle even begins.
That is the cleanest read on the rollout: season 35 starts with a two-night cutdown, then settles into Tuesday episodes on ABC and Disney+. If you are checking when Dancing with the Stars is on, the answer today is the premiere dates and the weekly day pattern; the exact time is the part the schedule leaves open.
