Broderick

I expect that's kids getting out of school for the summer & checking out Y&R to see if the hour-long expansion is as bad as they've heard. And yep, sure enough -- it is. They'll turn it back off. lol.

On 12/8/1978, look at Y&R way down at #8 (although there's only 1.2 difference in #1 & #8, as the ratings are so close that week. Six different shows have an 8.0 to an 8.3)

Yes, and she specifically commented that one of the reunions seemed poorly organized, inspiring her to skip it. As it turns out, it WAS poorly organized, annoying a number of fans, some of whom had come from overseas to attend it. If those fans left with a sour impression of the cast, it didn't affect her, as she'd (wisely) skipped it. I believe she reached a point in life many years ago where she doesn't feel compelled to do things that don't appeal to her.

I think too much is read into Victoria Principal's "stand-offish" behavior with the rest of the cast. Every quote I've ever seen her from her about Dallas (and about her co-stars) is fairly positive, even if she sometimes expressed disappointment with the writing. I've never had the impression that she disliked the cast -- simply that she came to work, did her job, was pretty nice about it, then went home and did her own thing instead of trying to immerse herself in Dallas 24/7. (While the others were clowning around on the set and going out to dinner together, she was dealing with a musician who had a serious drug problem.)

Gosh, should've remembered that one. They buried Pope Paul VI in August and then had to bury Pope John Paul about 33 days later!

Yes, if there was some special event (such as the U.S. Open coverage around Labor Day), sometimes Eastern Time and Central Time would get an episode that couldn't be shown on the West Coast. Maybe the West Coast got it later in the day, or maybe it was just skipped entirely. That would sometimes happen if the US Open Coverage started at 1:00 Eastern and ran until 5:30 Eastern. Such a schedule wouldn't preempt Y&R and Search for Tomorrow on the East Coast and Central Time, but would obviously preclude the shows from being seen in Mountain & Pacific Time.

My understanding is there's a limit on the number of "breakouts" (or uncounted episodes) they can air in a single season. If they know in advance the rest of the line-up is going to be preempted, such as for the U.S. Open back in the day, they might have one new episode of one series that aired in select time zones and was preempted in other time zones due to the Open coverage. Or maybe that episode would air in all of the time zones, but would play to a limited audience due to the rest of the line-up being preempted. That would be an example of one they would ask Nielsen NOT to count.

I doubt Nielsen ever really accurately captured the popularity of the shows in dorms and student unions. Their whole ratings system was geared toward "households", and I never believed their "households" reflected the sheer number of college students who were watching. You could probably take those Top 4 shows and double their numbers, and still not even be close to the eyeballs that were watching in colleges & universities during the lunch hour and the early afternoon.

There really wasn't much "eventually" to it. Its rapid rise really began after the first year. I believe it finished the 1972/1973 season in dead last place (#17), as it had only aired for 6 months that season. By the end of the 1973/1974 season, it was in 13th place, then 9th for the 1974/1975 season, and then a solid #3 for the 1975/1976 season, behind only As the World Turns and Another World, and it was in striking distance of both those shows. As others have noted, it was written by a fairly young man who had 15-20 years of experience in the industry and who knew what people liked. It was a polished, slick, stylized production, with attractive actresses and actors, it had "hip, modern" music, and it introduced topics that hadn't been explored before on daytime (mostly of a sexual nature). But underneath all of that, it was as old-fashioned as you could get -- basically just a dusted-off version of a 1950s Irna Phillips show, with more contemporary storylines and dialogue, moody lighting, and a leisurely, languid, laid-back California-style pacing that drew you in and made you listen to what they were saying. Watching the show in its half-hour days was a fairly "hypnotic" experience that completely differentiated it from anything else on television at the time; yet it never strayed far from a formula that had worked for 20 years. It was simply the right product for the right time. There's no question that it faltered for a couple of years after expanding to an hour, but once it regrouped, you'll see it rapidly rise right back to the top where it had been prior to expansion.

lol. That clip didn't last very long on YT. But it was fun to see!

I agree completely. As "suave" and "smooth" as early Y&R appeared to be, it was nothing more than a traditional 1950s Irna Phillips soap, updated with a youthful early 1970s "contemporary vibe".

When the show went to an hour in 1980, it became a LITTLE bit harder to "ignore it completely". She'd occasionally catch the last few minutes or the first few minutes. But of course it was still "horrible", as it featured a female stripper (Nikki), a male stripper (Cash), an older lady (Kay) paying a younger male prostitute for sex, and the perpetually bouncing breasts of Lorie Brooks "who evidently can't afford to buy herself a brassiere". Once some of the perceived "seediness" was zapped away (about 1982), she started watching it along with the rest of the the CBS line-up if she was at home. I still vividly remember her reaction when she walked through the living room & saw Tyrone in whiteface. "That poor little girl can't tell he's Tyrone?" lol.

My mother wouldn't watch it when she was home during the day. She kept it on CBS if she was in the house, but when "that awful show" came on, she turned it off. I learned early on that was the one to watch, lol.

First thing that jumped out at me. Maybe they hadn't recovered from the "CBS time switch" where all of that demo was supposedly depleted.

I believe World Turns was hurt by DEMOS, more than by any other factor. There's a book on soaps (written by Robert LaGuardia) that was published right about the time of these ratings -- late 1977, early 1978. LaGuardia closes his book by saying an "unprecedented number of young viewers have recently entered the daytime audience", and the shows primarily benefiting from this influx of young viewers, in his opinion, were All My Children and The Young and the Restless. In fact, he goes on to note -- direct quote here -- "The Young and the Restless and All My Children are currently all the rage on college campuses, where young viewers tend to relate to the characters on these two shows." We can see the proof of his assertion clearly in the ratings for the final week of December 1977. During that particular week, winter break from school was occurring all across America, and younger viewers were at home, taking control of their parents' TV sets. What's #1 & #2 that week? AMC and Y&R. The next week, school started back, and those younger viewers returned to campus, where their viewing wasn't being monitored by A.C. Nielson, and the parents at home switched back to As the World Turns and Another World, propelling the more traditional soaps back to the top. As the "influx of younger viewers" continued into the late 1970s and very early 1980s, we saw All My Children continue doing extremely well, along with One Life to Live, and of course General Hospital, which underwent a huge transformation in 1979. We also saw The Young and the Restless at or near the top of the ratings in 1979 and 1980, up until its somewhat disastrous transition to an hour, which temporarily zapped away the momentum it had been gaining for the past 7 years. I don't necessarily believe World Turns was "abandoned" by its viewers. I believe the viewers of the older P&G soaps were simply dying off slowly, and the younger viewers, who were entering the audience at a fast rate, were more interested in the ABC shows and the Bell shows.

Yep, that's the "weekend cottage" on Lake Geneva that was pointed out to me. During the time they owned it, their "weekday house" was a large, expensive unit in a high-rise on Lake Shore Drive in Chicago. I bet they made a KILLING when they disposed of their properties in the Midwest, then bought wisely in California and made yet another killing.

The business with the "blood Abbott clause" was probably a good story for Eileen (in theory), but it wasn't handled very well, and I do expect it hastened her decision to call it quits as a contract actor on the show. I'd imagine the budget cuts were also a factor. No reason for her to sign a new contract at a smaller salary, tie herself to the show full-time, and get lousy storylines in return. She doesn't seem to mind working when she feels like it, lol.

Those folks have always had really nice houses. Bill Bell was always fairly dismissive of his "weekend cottage" at Lake Geneva. A few years ago, I was up there and saw this two-story 1920s mansion with a red-tile roof on the south shore of the lake. I commented to the folks I was with, "That's sure a pretty one." It looked to be about a 15,000 square foot house, and it had a tremendous amount of lake frontage (about 100 yards, it looked like). The response was, "Oh that house is Casa del Sueno; it belonged to this guy who wrote soap operas. His wife had a talk show in Chicago. They moved to California in the 1980s." Didn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who that was.

I agree that Dallas, at its best, was fundamentally a "modern-day Western". When doing a re-boot, you're probably best served by keeping the underlying THEME of the program -- what made it unique and popular -- and then updating that theme for a newer audience. There's no reason a crime drama aspect couldn't work -- as long as the crime/drama elements were secondary to the family dynamics and the "epic Western" theme.

I read the article last night about Beyonce buying "the most expensive home ever sold in California", and I noted the house is hideously ugly but in a pretty location. It never crossed my mind that was Lil Billy & Maria Arena's house!

Which is kind of the opposite of what Dallas was intended to be. For the 1978 version, TPTB outfitted themselves pretty well with veteran actors for the tentpole characters -- Barbara Bel Geddes, Jim Davis, & David Wayne -- but they let the younger actors carry the majority of the storylines. Producers don't have that confidence anymore.

It's hard to remember, but I believe there were a couple of weeks when it appeared CBS had miscalculated. My recollection -- might be wrong -- is that the 1st installment did well in the ratings, the 2nd and 3rd installments were disappointing, the 4th was well-received, and the 5th showed clear series potential. Which is why CBS reran it a few months later, to guarantee viewers had the opportunity to catch the two installments that hadn't fared as well.

I'm not sure why CBS, Lorimar, and Dell Publishing opted for that (rather expensive) treatment of a miniseries that might or might not sell. PRESUMABLY, it was because of the "miniseries based on the best-selling novel" craze of the late 1970s and early 1980s. We'd seen Irwin Shaw's Rich Man, Poor Man hit CBS in 1976. Jesus of Nazareth and, of course, Roots had also gotten the treatment. In 1978, Judith Krantz wrote Scruples (the first big "sex & shopping" blockbuster, based on Giorgio's of Beverly Hills), and CBS was frantically purchasing the novel's television rights for an elaborate 1980 miniseries. There seemed to be a belief that Dallas possessed a certain "epic blockbuster" element that would lend itself to a novel, even though the novel hadn't existed prior to the television project. My understanding is that by the time the miniseries was rerun in late 1978 to introduce the first full season, sales of the novel had hit 300,000 copies and had generated more royalties for the author than any other novel he'd ever written.

@Khan, that's excellent. In my opinion, you should consider deleting it, as it's far too good to risk having it stolen. Seriously.

I wonder that, too. It was a multi-layered process, I believe. Once CBS had fully committed to the 5 episodes, a contract was made with Dell Publishing Company -- either through CBS, Lorimar, or David Jacobs -- to have a novel produced that captured the action of the 5 episodes and also expanded upon the backstory of the characters who were introduced in the 5 episodes. Dell Publishing Company then contracted with author Lee Raintree, who was an accomplished, versatile writer that was known to be able to produce a novel in a matter of a few weeks. Raintree could guarantee delivery of the manuscript to Dell Publishing by the time the miniseries hit the CBS airwaves.