British soaps - has the bubble burst?

[DRW50]

The article feels five years out of date, at least, and is poorly written (relying on Corrie actor scandals but not having the guts to talk about anything beyond a silly product plugging scam...ignoring that Corrie had huge, huge offcamera problems in the early 80s similar to some of what is going on today...citing one of those joke Daily Mail articles that Mail/Mirror/Daily Star/etc. come out with every time Corrie gets a new producer), but you might enjoy it.

The main part I agree with is some British soaps in the 80s told complex stories that pap like Mad Men now gets credit for.

http://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/2013/oct/01/soap-operas-has-the-bubble-burst

[Ben]

I do think the heart of what the article is about is true. The soaps have lost their social relevance, and they aren't telling modern stories with modern characters. They are following in the US soaps footsteps: slowly losing what they once were, relying on the young demographic to pull in ratings, telling more sensational and OTT storylines, relying heavily on ratings, etc. It's the classic tale of not knowing how to be modern, while trying to be modern, but not really wanting to change.

They should be creating characters that feel real, have them doing stuff that is reflective of today's society, telling socially relevant stories. Instead, they rely on the same old character types and the same old themes of murder and adultery to push them along.

You could say the article is 5 years too late, but we all know why it was churned out now - b/c EE has been haemorrhaging viewers, and that has gotten some people's attention.

Besides, no-one really wants to listen. People said the same things when a variant of this article did rounds about the US soaps 10 years ago. "They aren't dying, yet." "They are still strong." " I can't see [insert soap here] going anywhere any time soon." etc. Now the US is down to 4 soaps and 2 online languishing in purgatory.

[Winchester91]

Soaps always need to adapt and change with the times. If anything, the English soaps suffer from erring on the side of too "old and irrelevant" (with all that implies) for today's audiences, similar to what US soaps suffered from during the last decade. More 90210, less Golden Girls.

[soapgirluk]

I think it's harder for EE etc to try and modernize, as everytime they've tried to focus storys on younger cast they get complaints. " EE has to many teens" etc As the older viewers seem to just want adults getting screentime. It's tough as they need to bring in new viewers (ED & Corrie aswell) but also dont want to alienate & lose the current viewers. HO is a great modern Soap yet even when it's got great storylines/acting it still has fairly low viewers. imo spoilers have played a big part in viewers numbers coming down, as if you know something big is going to happen you'll probably watch ( as shown by eps like that viewers are usually high) whereas a normal ep people think 'well nothing big is happening i'll miss this ep' I also think watching online on iplayer/itv player/4od not to mention the repeats on BBC3/ITV2/E4 play a part. As instead of say 10 million for Corrie 7.30 ITV1, its split between that showing,the ITV2 repeats & the online player

[JWDrama1980]

UK Soaps are going no where. ITV Ratings & BBC Ratings for the week ending October 13, 2013.

BBC (000's)

1 STRICTLY COME DANCING (SAT 1829) 10,899

2 STRICTLY COME DANCING: THE RESULTS (SUN 1920) 8,952

3 EASTENDERS (MON 2000) 7,824

4 EASTENDERS (THU 1929) 7,373

5 COUNTRYFILE (SUN 1819) 6,782

6 EASTENDERS (FRI 2000) 6,390

7 ATLANTIS (SAT 2031) 6,241

8 ANTIQUES ROADSHOW (SUN 1959) 5,534

9 EASTENDERS (TUE 1929) 5,421

10 CASUALTY (SAT 2127) 5,030

ITV

ITV (was ITV1)

w/e 13 Oct 2013

000's

1 DOWNTON ABBEY (SUN 2103) 9,922

2 CORONATION STREET (MON 1933) 9,031

3 THE X FACTOR RESULTS (SUN 1959) 8,791

4 CORONATION STREET (MON 2030) 8,783

5 CORONATION STREET (WED 1932) 8,343

6 DOC MARTIN (MON 2100) 7,971

7 CORONATION STREET (SUN 1859) 7,741

8 THE X FACTOR (SAT 1959) 7,720

9 EMMERDALE (MON 1902) 7,053

10 EMMERDALE (FRI 1901) 7,022

[difficultdiva]

What about Hollyoaks?

How do they rank?

[soapgirluk]

HO ratings wise doesn't come close to the top 3, here's rating from the explosion episodes which even with a boost are still low

http://www.digitalspy.co.uk/soaps/s13/hollyoaks/news/a523884/hollyoaks-boosted-by-explosion-storyline-on-tuesday.html

[beebs]

Yeh, HO usually gets about 1.13 Million viewers lately, which is good compared to the recent past in that they're actually in the Top 30 C4 shows, but nowhere near the heights they reached 6-7 years ago.

Also, those ratings for EE are alarmingly low. Last year they were typically far and away the #1 show on BBC, with around 9-10 Million per episode. Now they're bottoming out at 5.4? Scary, though hopefully temporary as the Michael Moon murder scenes were fantastic (though there's shades of Den's murder being retreaded in the story that follows, I still think it'll get the ratings up).

[JWDrama1980]

Eastenders ratings has improved over the last few weeks.

1 STRICTLY COME DANCING (SAT 1834) 11.26

2 STRICTLY COME DANCING: THE RESULTS (SUN 1921) 10.79

3 EASTENDERS (MON 2001) 8.78

4 EASTENDERS (TUE 1929) 8.04

5 EASTENDERS (FRI 2001) 7.99

6 EASTENDERS (THU 1929) 7.82