will81

Oh yeah but I think networks counted the last commercial after the end credits. Y&R would run to 12:28 and then there would be commercials between it and Search. This was the same in Primetime. Most shows ended 1 - 2 min before the half hour or hour with a commercial break. But these shows were all listed as 30 or 60 min shows. In the 90's I think NBC started getting rid of this between certain shows so people had less chance of changing the channel. Friends would end on the half hour so the new show at 8:30 would start immediately but that show would end 2 min early and another commercial break before Seinfeld. Then Seinfeld would end right on 9:30 and the next show would start immediately. In the 70's, I don't think any show in primetime or daytime ended bang on the half hour or hour. in terms of those other news shows. It might have been down to the network not seeing those as official, but likely part of a mid show commercial break that included a news update and CBS saw Mid-Day News as part of the daytime schedule.

I think most half hour shows around 1978 with commercials ran around 28 min. Close to 22 min without. Maybe CBS had slightly less commercials for Love of Life but I'd still guess it must have ran around 18 - 19 minutes without commercials.

Thanks Jason47 for the info and @BoldRestless for asking about this one. I'm going with the idea of a repeat. Maybe Columbia/Sony and CBS and Bell thought it was worth repeating Chris and Snapper's wedding to an audience that had missed it. Either way I feel like Sep 04 can probably be seen as a pre-emption of sorts. In terms of the contractual obligation with advertisers maybe they also didn't want to lose too much revenue in areas where the show could still be aired, so they aired something where possible. Just not a new episode.

So it was a syndicated show. Thanks for tracking it down. I might look to see what other episodes aired and if I can find any other cast and production information, from the tv lisitings it sounds elaborate and like it might have had a decent budget. Especially if they are comparing it to Faerie Tale Theatre.

I do feel it held him back a bit though. I think Bell had a certain conservatism but you can see moments where he tried to break out of it and the audience wasn't having it and he backed off. I feel ABCD audiences might have taken more to his pushing the limits.

Well Dion is a Queen so I'd be happy to get her voice stuck in my head : ) Oh awesome, thanks for the info. I guess the NYC NBC O&O had enough money to produce their own show. It wouldn't surprise me anyway.

True, I guess had they not been involved the retooling would never have happened. Lovers and Friend would have simply been cancelled. I notice in New York they aired a show called Unicorn Tales, was Special Treat something different? Unicorn Tales had a remake of Wizard of Oz and a musical remake of Alice in Wonderland

NBC sure seemed to enjoy pre-empting For Richer, For Poorer, and not even for any good reason.

Awesome, yeah she did get a little too possessive of her, haha. So great your grandma loved the show so much! Changing track. I think Henry Slesar took over SFT around this time. He was definitely there by the week of Mar 20, 1978 but not sure if that was his first week or not. He lasts about six months. Will be interesting to see the week to week ratings. The Corringtons take over around the week of Sep 11 approximately.

Was she okay with the sort of lesbian story with Kay/Joann? Y&R's ratings did drop in 1977 as a result and I think they were still recovering in 1978

That is interesting as it's audience share doesn't really drop much. So it seems overall that timeslot lost households. At least that's how I read it. You can see it drop from an 8.4 to a 7.9 but it maintains a 27% share and then it falls again to 7.6 and finally drops 1% share point. So despite it's big tumble in rank, overall it was still mostly maintaing its share of the available audience.

Thank you so much. Love all of this, even for soaps I'm not into, love the 70's regardless so this is gold. Interesting ABC chose to air a 13min episode of OLTL - not sure why they didn't just pre-empt it GH doesn't air its first 1 hour ep Jan 16 but the following day which must have been annoying as I assume ABC promoted it a fair bit.

For those needing information on writers, here is some info I captured from Newspaper articles, can post articles if people want Tony Converse (Producer) and Lou Scofield (writing with John Hess) came on around December 1968 Gillian Houghton was listed as new HW with EP Charles Weiss and Assoc Producer Bernie Sofronski - From an article dates Aug 23, 1969. I believe Gillian Houghton is Gabrielle Upton and she did return to the show at the end Gerry Day and Bethel Leslie are announced Sep 06, 1970 Feb 01, 1972 The HW is listed as Bob Cenedella with Frances Rickett and Joe Caldwell. Producers is Joseph Manetta

Bell also had cast issues too in 1980 David H wanted out but agreed to stay basically as a guest star Lynn Topping was mostly off due to a difficult pregnancy and then maternity leave. She refused to sign the same contract as David and walked Jaime-Lyn Bauer also had a difficult pregnancy that slowed certain stories and ground to a halt others. She ended up leaving on maternity leave early and was off for over two months Brenda Dickson left and her replacement Bond Gideon was let go after six months and replaced with Deborah Adair and the Jill/Jack/John story was pretty much a non starter that would result in Brett Halsey being let go John McCook left which mostly resulted in the 4 L's drama falling apart. In 1979 the two biggest stories were the Prentiss family drama and Jill/Kay/Derek with Stu/Liz/Suzanne. Both those stories suffered as a result of the above cast departures. Basically half the show was in trouble. The Santa Leandro/Leslie's amnesia story fell flat, the cult story fell flat and Jill's stories were in stop start mode. On top of that Bell seemed to feel April/Paul and the Stevens/Williams were the future of the show and I don't think audiences agreed.

I can only say the stats which are that people rarely live ten years beyond symptoms developing or becoming noticed. This means around 94/95 would be the point Bell might have started becoming more affected. I do think he was HW of the show until 1997 and then shared duties with Kay Alden until 1998. He was still the Senior Exec Producer and a Senior Story Consultant after that. How long he was contributing though, my guess is a couple of years after he stepped down as HW.

She was Mrs. Chancellor for the longest time. Even Liz called her Mrs. Chancellor for ages. I don't think Jill ever called her anything but Mrs. Chancellor until she married John in 1982 and felt she was now Kay's social equal. Very few people ever referred to Kay as anything else. Except whomever she was married to at the time. In the early to mid 80's Jack didn't really like her, John found her annoying even if he was nice to her and most others feared her or were intimidated by her except Nikki, as Kay was like a second mother to her (except for that period where Melody gave Jeanne the silent treatment) I think by the late 80's It is obvious Bell and co were elevating Kay in GC society and she was becoming an elder stateswoman of Genoa City and the show. Marrying Rex really softened her, even though she continued to cause trouble for Jill. Taking Phillip and by extension Cricket, under her wing helped to reshape her for the younger generation. By 1998 Jill was seen as an outlier in her hatred for Kay and usually in the wrong and a horrible person. Everyone else loved Katherine, respected her and saw her in a virtous light. Calling her Katherine instead of Kay cemented that respect. Jess did always say Katherine but often with bitterness in her voice or tension. It did work but also added to the formality in a way.

I have always thought this too. It would have made more sense, since Amy and Nathan had a history already. Bringing in Dru as either non-related to Amy or a cousin or sister that the family never talked about and bringing back Loretta and Frank would have worked well. I'm wondering what the timeline was. Tonya Lee Williams said she had read for Dru, but wasn't happy with the idea of representing as a Black woman who couldn't read. So Bill Bell created Olivia. I wonder if Tonya read and turned the role down, then maybe Victoria was offered the part and around the same time Stephanie took off for GH and that's when Bell created Olivia and reached back out to Tonya. I totally agree, losing Stephanie was a big mistake on Bell's part. She had it all, great acting, charisma and chemistry with her co-stars, even those her character wasn't romantically involved with. Plus history and an already introduced family that were established. To add to that. Tyrone and Jazz could have come back too. Tyrone could have joined Jabot's legal department, Bell already had a triangle with Tyrone/Amy/Nathan and then you add Dru. I think he still could have brought on Neil and Olivia and had them be a married couple who are ultimately split apart by some new start at Jabot or something. Just off the top of my head, not sure what I would do with Neil and Olivia, though would still want them and Malcolm on the show.

Yes and there was talk that Chris might have twins as Lynn gave birth to twins, but the show kept it to one child.

I found some more details around Y&R going #1 in 1984. Seems it was around week of May 14 - 18 according to the first article The second one from June 22, talks about GH being in fourth place. Y&R was still the #1 rated soap. Then ranks for week Jul 02 - 06 that I found #1 General Hospital #2 The Young and the Restless #3 All My Children #4 Wheel of Fortune #5 The Price is Right #6 One Life to Live #7 As The World Turns #8 Guiding Light #9 Days of Our Lives #10 Scrabble

I just checked. She wrote and published Naked at Dawn in September 1974 while Leslie was still in Fairview. Maybe it tanked and she re-released it like In My Sister's Shadow which was released first in 1975 and went nowhere (Vanessa re publicised it and made it popular in 1978) Or maybe Bell forgot about the 1974 book and they named her later book Naked at Dawn by accident. Lorie clearly states in September 1974 that her book is Naked at Dawn.

Naked at Dawn was her first book from 1974 right? Impressive that JLB remembered that one at all. I'm betting the party was hectic and Michael just managed to get certain people together and not others for no other reason than it must have been difficult to co-ordinate.

I'm pretty sure Paul mentioned Newman Towers for the new offices and yes it had Penthouse apartments there as well. Nikki and Jack meet in one and Victor spies on them in 1987 Jabot was in its own building and I don't remember any other company being mentioned there Victor and Leanna, I thought also lived in Newman but maybe not. I don't remember Jill living in the same condo building as Victor. After her 1986 divorce she was in the Genoa City Hotel Penthouse and I thought she pretty much moved in with Keith after her second divorce, which is why when kay ruined that relationship Jill forced her to let her move in as she had no home to go to. Did Jill have another residence after her second divorce? I don't remember that

I also wonder if, given the option, most of the actors would have chosen 80's or 90's material. Leaving little of post 2000's to be shown. I bet TPTB would hate that. They want 2010's Y&R to considered classic just as much as any other decade I think and probably pushed more for later years stuff.

I know we will never see a Brenda Dickson scene, but the one before Christmas 83 where the Abbott's are arguing over whether Dina should come for Christmas Day was awesome. Really showed the split in the family and Jill finally feeling like John was taking her side for once. Jill felt she had triumphed, while Ashley, although hating the idea of her mother being there, still felt bad for Traci and Jack who wanted her there. John who was torn and Jack and Traci who went from happy to miserable.

Newspaper listings show Father Knows Best began airing Monday April 03, 1967 and General Hospital returned Tuesday April 11, 1967. Maybe ABC was not allowed to air the show at all during the strike or thought it best to just replace the show immediately rather than wait for episodes to run out. Not sure. My other thought, do actors get paid if the episode doesn't air? Maybe ABC didn't want to pay actors on strike.