If NBC promoted it more, maybe the perception of the public would change, but right now all people really care about in the US is singles. You can't change a perception if people don't care enough to change their perception.
IMO, this is bunk. Who says people don't care enough to change the perception? And exactly what kind of expertise do those people have?
NBC has the technical counter up on the screen now to help the audience see the technical comparisons. And they have been hiring real dancers to do the commentary now--athletes with actual experience under IJS. IMO, those athletes are doing their
best to change that perception. Belbin & Agosto, Davis & White, and the Shibs have
all worked pretty hard, IMO, to help make ice dance more accessible to the general public. And U.S. Nationals has had real movement, surprise upsets, & split placements based on the quality of performances
in the moment over the past two seasons.
Of course, there is more controversy in dance than other disciplines as the difference in technical difficulty is far less widespread than in singles/pairs and most of the medals are being determined based on footwork sequence calls that are 1.generally not visible to the average viewer on television and 2.subjective even for the callers. When mistakes are visible to the audience, however, I think people understand. And the protocols are right there for anyone to look up. Even after Worlds this year, which was such a mess, people did understand that V&M had the lead after the SD. Are there poorly called and poorly judged dance events? Absolutely. But those exist in singles as well. If every singles event was as closely competed as the men's short program at Junior Worlds this season, then you would get the same kind of arguing about whether so-and-so should really be ahead based on solely GOE and PCS. It's a hazard of having a lot of great performances with essentially the same top-level BV. Kind of a nice problem to have when you think about it.