GLATWT88

I personally prefer an hour long soap. The runtime of soaps are condensed as it is, so to truly develop story and rich dialogue, I think an hour works best. 

However considering the state of network TV, soaps, and budgets, I think 30 minutes would be favorable. If they're going to do this, I want it done right and I don't want to see cheap-looking sets that are empty with just the main scene actors. Maybe a week long premeire of hour long epsidoes to set the stage before reverting to 30 minute episodes would be nice...but honestly, I'm just excited to see what comes out of this. 

I know that soaps generally focus around families, but I think having a core friend group or colleagues in some sort of business/profession can open up storylines and steer things away from the incestuous.  

1 hour ago, 1974mdp said:

 I don't see ATWT or GL ever returning in any shape or form at this point. BUT, if this show were to be successful, I could see ABC possibly rebooting AMC (and a lesser extent OLTL) since the network owns the rights to those shows. The shows could also stream on Hulu with all of ABC's titles. The twin cancellation of those shows remains to be a head scratcher. ABC still had to be making money off of both of them, and they had just paid all that cash to relocate AMC to Los Angeles. And, God knows, none of the stuff they replaced those two shows with ever took off.

Definitely don't see a reboot of any of the daytime soaps as a possibility...at least not in the standard soap opera format. Maybe a prime time version ala Pine Valley could happen, although that unfortunately never took off. Yet, even that is pushing it. As we further remove ourselves from their cancelations, we are losing any steam these soaps had. 

We could be nice is some "crossovers" or even the return of some soap greats to participate in this new soap in some way. There are a few names I would love to see acting again even for a short arc. 

Oh hey, Alexis and Dominque, love the catfight but this is the Dallas thread ladies...

If you asked me back when Passions, GL, and ATWT were canceled, shortly followed by the end of AMC and OLTL, whether soaps would still be on the air in 2024, I would have told you no. I didn't see any of the soaps surviving another decade. To hear that there is a tradional format soap being put forth in 2024 is amazing news for us soap fans albeit very shocking and kind of scary. 

I know it's early, but where would this be filmed? As much as I would love a NYC soap, I think financially west coast or Atlanta would make the most sense. 

Back when GL and ATWT were canceled, I mentioned scaling down to a half hour and relocating both soaps to Atlanta which was beginning to boom in film and TV production at the time and giving companies great incentives would save both soaps a lot of money. May have been a challenge to convince casts to move out there though. 

5 hours ago, kalbir said:

CBS had three daytime game shows as of September 29, 1986: 10 am ET $25000 Pyramid, 10:30 am ET Card Sharks, 11 am ET The Price is Right. If one of the game shows was going to go, I'd say $25000 Pyramid was the most likely.

Card Sharks was not going anywhere because Mark Goodson allegedly demanded CBS to give Card Sharks the lead in to The Price is Right, otherwise he'd take both shows to another network. Bill Bell also allegedly demanded that CBS give B&B the lead out from Y&R, otherwise he'd take both shows to another network. I don't think CBS was going to risk losing their two biggest daytime shows The Price is Right and Y&R.

So 1987 we could have gotten

10 am Capitol

10:30 am Card Sharks

11 am The Price is Right

noon Local programming

12:30 pm Y&R

1:30 pm B&B

2 pm As the World Turns

3 pm Guiding Light

As for 10 am ET, ABC didn't program anything in that slot from the 1970s onward AFAIK, NBC gave it up in 1991, and CBS gave it up in 1993.

Did CBS aquire that 10am timeslot again for the Let's Make a Deal reboot or is LMAD just in GL's timeslot according to market. I ask because GL was on at 10am in NYC and that's the timeslot LMAD took over. Would make it sense to be paired back to back with TPIR. 

So is Falcon Crest being pulled or just added to Prime? I see it as leaving soon on my end, but there no similar designation for Dallas. 

I would like to rewatch FC from the beginning, but not if I will lose access to it soon. 

1 hour ago, Mitch64 said:

GL was still very good material wise, about to fall, and this is one time where you could see the ratings linking up with the quality. JFP can't blame O.J.

 

 

I agree and like @Khanhan think 94 is still decent. 

@Gray Bunny Beth's last week also scored a 5.7, although that was only good enough to get GL a 6th place finish instead of Top 5 a few weeks earlier. So I guess, Beth's claim that GL was scoring a 5.7 when she left wasn't wrong. 

4 hours ago, Gray Bunny said:

Was this week in 1993 when Beth Ehlers left GL the first time?  I distinctly remember an interview with her in Digest when she returned and they mentioned how when she left the show was "flying high" with a 5.7 rating but nowadays hovers around a 4.0, and I always thought a 5.7 seemed higher than usual for GL in the '93 era, save for the post-Christmas/winter snow storm highs of January/February. 

Pretty sure Beth's last airdate is at the end of the month. From what I gathered on YouTube, this is the week Bridget crashes Dylan and Julie's wedding. 

On 2/19/2024 at 1:41 PM, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 8/16/93-8/20/93 & 8/23/93-8/27/93:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 8/30/93-9/3/93 & 9/6/93-9/10/93:

I think this is the last time GL gets a top 5 finish in the 90s until the clone storyline in 1998. 

43 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Was this before, during or after Jean Holloway did a number on it?

I'm not sure when Jean left. But by the time she arrived LOL was already a sinking ship, it had been for most of the decade. 

12 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

The 3.30-4.30 slot of MASH and Match Game seemed compatible programming. An hour of comedy following the soap block.

So then to drop Match Game for Love of Life seemed odd. LOL had played in the morning for years and expecting viewers to find it in the afternoon was a big ask.

If they really wanted it to work it would have been scheduled following GL with MASH moved to 4pm.

But clearances were lower at 4pm and MASH was probably too valuable to be placed there.

I think it was just a way to get rid of Love of Life and blame the ratings.

It makes sense. I'm sure the network was interested in replacing it by then either way. GH and ABC were heating up and LOL was showing its age and definitely felt outdated. 

On 1/11/2024 at 7:50 PM, JAS0N47 said:

MAY 1979 SWEEPS WEEK CHARTS: MONDAY-FRIDAY & SATURDAY EARLY MORNING & DAYTIME:

 

 

NOVEMBER 1979 SWEEPS WEEK CHARTS: MONDAY-FRIDAY & SATURDAY EARLY MORNING & DAYTIME:

 

 

1980's to be posted in the '80s Ratings Thread.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Seems like poor foresight to place Love of Life at 4pm instead of 3:30. The 3:30pm slot is doing well at maintaining GL's audience - perhaps viewers were sticking around til 4pm and letting that hour block conclude before switching off or onto something else. Wonder if the network just didn't have much faith in LOL and keeping a rerun that could pull in numbers was just a wiser move than jeopardizing the slot in the case LOL still manages to underperform. 

On 2/14/2024 at 2:19 AM, SFK said:

I'm about to wrap up season 8 of my rewatch which has for the most part been more of a first watch. Something that surprised me as I'd missed it for all of these years was the mention of AIDS. While watching, I wondered if Reagan had even said the word publicly by that point. The scene between Blake and Steven felt uncharacteristically real and really snatched the confectionery quality out of my mouth. 

Lesley Carrington gets on my damn nerves.

It's weird how Amanda's existence is wiped by the repeated mention of Alexis' three children: Adam, Steven, and Fallon. I don't think the Oxenberg/Cellini situations were egregious enough to ignore Amanda's existence.

For me, Season 7 ushered in a feeling that the party was over. We'd seen the best years of the glitz and glam OTT Dynasty that made it famous. The death of La Mirage and the move to The Carleton, saying goodbye to Alexis' penthouse and hello to her career as the head of a newspaper... it felt like the show had gotten too expensive and was trying to transition into being more grounded which was less exciting. It still holds my attention, but the tone is undeniably different. I'm looking forward to seeing Sable again.

I wonder if this "more grounded" feel also had to do with the massive ratings erosion that occurred in season 7 and the decline that would continue til the end. 

2 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Different shows had different lead times one to three weeks was pretty standard I believe at that time. 

A Days script from 84 has tape date March 16 and air date March 30

Y&R 1980  tape date July 17 air date July 22

Thank you. Didn't realize the turnover was so quick. When did these longer tape to air periods become more of the norm, especially Days which seems to have one of the longest.

40 minutes ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Script teaser from Douglas Marland’s GL Emmy winning episode submission. This script won the Emmy. 

Am I correct to assume that GL was recording episodes one week before they aired back in 1980? Was this common practice or am I misunderstanding? 

31 minutes ago, Melroser said:

Sorry if this has been brought up already.

I'm watching from the beginning as I never started as a teenager until Bobby returned in the shower. At the beginning of S7 now and Barbara Bel Geddes hasn't been in the first several episodes. Was there a particular reason for this? She left for a season shortly after correct? Was she just trying to cut back on the number of episodes?

watching from the beginning the most shocking thing for me to discover was that Christopher was Kristen's child. I never knew that!! I just always knew that he had been adopted.  

I believe she underwent heart surgery and missed out on the earlier episodes and is replaced next season. I remember when I, similar to you, decided to watch all the eoisode from the very beginning not too long ago and noticed she was absent and thought that this would be the season Geddes gets replaced by Donna Reed but it's not. 

Matt Bomer briefly talks about his run on GL after receiving The Hollywood Reporter's Trailblazers Award. 

Complete Article: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/tv/tv-news/matt-bomer-interview-ryan-murphy-bradley-cooper-career-scad-tvfest-1235819552/

In lighter moments, Bomer reflected on humbling milestones he experienced as an aspiring actor, from his first role as a background artist at age 12 in the 1992 Chuck Norris movie Sidekicks (“If that’s not an origin story, then what is?” he wondered, laughing) to a three-year run as a regular on both All My Children and Guiding Light in New York in the early 2000s.

His appraisal of those gigs was tinged with equal parts appreciation (“It felt like going to grad school”) and unbridled amusement.

“My Guiding Light character was a trust-fund baby who bet his fraternity brothers he’d be the first to deflower the town virgin … then he lost his trust fund and turned to the only life that someone can when they lose their trust fund: sex work. Then he went crazy and killed five people,” Bomer said, laughing along with the crowd inside the newly minted SCADShow theater. “Some days I’d have 30 pages of dialogue, ya’ll!”

11 hours ago, Jdee43 said:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/1980/08/03/the-soaps/168439d7-c212-4a7f-8151-d2408ff455fc/

The Soaps -- 'Texas': A New Soap Opera That Wants To Be The 'Dallas' of Daytime

By Joel Swerdlow

August 2, 1980 

 

THE WORLD will have to wait for the fall to discover who shot J.R. Ewing. But starting this week, viewers have another way to get deep in the turbulent heart of Texas.

Tomorrow afternoon at 3, "Texas," a new soap opera set in Houston, premieres on NBC. "It'll be the 'Dallas' of daytime," brags NBC programming chief Brandon Tartikoff.

"If it sounds like a daytime version of 'Dallas'," says Daytime TV magazine, "Well, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery."

And there's more to come: NBC's afternoon round-up is only the beginning of what looks like a network trail drive into the Lone Star State: Big-spending Texas couple Bo and Asa Buchanan were created for ABC's "One Life to Live" last January; more and more Texan characters appear on prime-time programs; and ABC is preparing the series called "Oil!" as a likely mid-season replacement for the fall.

Although "Texas" Executive Producer Paul Rauch denies the "Dallas" connection, his heart is deep in Dixie. "Back in 1978 I worked with two writers, one from Houston and the other from Shreveport on developing a daytime show called 'Reunion' about a girl who spent the Civil War in England and then returned home. It didn't get on the air, but last summer NBC asked if we would develop a contemporary show."

Many of the "Texas" characters are still undefined, but Rauch emphasizes that there will be "no archetypical villain" modeled after J.R. However, there will be "lust, sentiment and men and women bigger than life thrust into each other's lives," says Jason Bonderoff, editor of Daylight TV.

The new soap was created in one of the most elaborate spin-off plans in TV history.

Last May, fans of NBC's "Another World" (for which Rauch is also executive director) began to see new characters. Disillusioned by love, young Dennis Carrington moved from midwestern Bay City to Houston. His nasty mother, Iris, accompanied by her cranky maid Vivian, followed him. Iris loves to manipulate Dennis, her only son. And besides, she had become friendly with Reena Cooke, a former Texas belle married to Dr. Kevin Cooke. Reena got Kevin to move to Houston, and, of course, invited Iris. Last June, they jumped into a private jet, and since then half of "Another World" has transpired in Houston.

The best is yet to come: In her youth, Iris had a love affair with Alex Wheeler, now head of Houston-based World Oil (and more powerful than the entire Ewing family put together). Alex never married because for a quarter century he's nursed a love for Iris. The two meet again in Houston and flames flicker, but then Iris finds out about Vicki, with whom Alex has been having an affair for 15 years. In the last episode of "Another World," broadcast last Friday, Iris boarded a plan and flew away from Houston and Alex forever.

But Alex, like J.R. before him, likes to call the shots. Tomorrow, in the first "Texas" episode, he has Iris' plane called back, hustles her into a chauffeured limousine, and holds her captive on his luxurious yacht.

Viewers fearing for the safety and virtue of Iris must stay tuned.

Despite its close clone-like similarity to super-hit "Dallas," the new soap faces a tough challenge. "Another World" has attempted two previous spinoffs -- "Somerset" and "Lovers & Friends" -- both of which failed. "Lovers and Friends" eventually became "For Richer, For Poorer," which disappeared several years ago, and was NBC's last attempt at innovation in the field.

Nonetheless, conditions may be favorable for a new daytime drama. Nielsen figures show a slight increase in the audience for soaps, even though the percentage of women in the work force is also increasing. Experts believe the explanation lies in the new youth-oriented plots and sexuality injected into the shows, especially by ABC. "They've been the hottest network for over 10 years," says a broadcast executive. "They do the most and they set the trends."

One reason for ABC's lead is that Procter & Gamble -- virtually the only soap company still in the soap-opera business -- owns only one of four ABC shows. "P&G ownership makes a big difference," says Bonderoff. "They keep a close watch on their shows, and they're very conservative." A P&G "memorandum on broadcast policies," quoted by media historian Erik Barnouw, in "The Sponsors" says: "There will be no material that may give offense to any commercial organization of any sort."

But NBC daytime programming chief Linda Line says Texas would be a breakthrough program for P&G. "They are sensitive to trends in public taste." Line claims to feel under little constraint. "I would do anything that would work as a good story," she says.

The stakes are high because soaps generate extraordinary profits. Internal NBC documents obtained by Variety recently reveal that for 11 months spanning 1979 and 1980, the 90-minute "Another World" (which finished third in its time-slot) took in $230,000 per broadcast in net revenues, cost $71,000 per episode, and consequently earned a profit of $159,000 per broadcast. By comparison, "The Tonight Show" earned net revenues of $190,000 and a $131,000 profit per broadcast.

With such figures, it's not surprising that NBC President Fred Silverman showed up at a cowboy-style barbecue at Rockefeller Center last week to celebrate the start of "Texas."

Silverman served as the CBS daytime programmer from 1962 to 1970. "He had a poor record," says Bonderoff. "He decided that soaps weren't viable and replaced them with game shows" But "Fred is very close to this area and feels very excited about "Texas'," says NBC's Line. "He and I decided together to put it on the air." NBC's flashy, provocative promo ads for the new show have been running throughout the prime-time and daytime schedules. "It's the most ambitious campaign ever launched for the debut of a daytime program," says Line.

Ultimately, NBC need not worry about losing money. A recent Federal Communications Commission staff report -- based on examination of available network records spanning several decades -- concludes that " a daytime program series usually returns a profit from initial network exhibition, even if it is canceled after a brief run."

But NBC is after more than a profit. "We hope to set the standard for quality programming," says Line. "We want to say that characters can no longer sit around the coffee table and discuss their neighbors. We'll have more sophisticated plot devices and an upgraded production that will look like prime time."

Executive producer Rauch claims "Texas" "will revolutionize daytime television." He cites the extensive exterior shooting (soaps have been going outdoors more often since about 1978), the use of cinematic filters to achieve a softer look and brighter colors, and the full development of an identifiable city.

The other networks are sitting back in the saddle and waiting to see what happens before they, too, ride into Texas. "It's an interesting experiment. I'm glad to see it," says Jeanne Renick, CBS' east coast director for daytime programs. CBS, according to Renick, has no present plans for Texas-style spin-offs.

ABC's Jacqueline Smith says her network is working on "General Hospital," it will remain in the East. She is reserving judgement on "Texas": "All the scenery in the world won't help a show that doesn't have the necessary plot interest. Scenery is still scenery," she says.

 

 

 

 

 

On paper, Texas sounded perfect for the era. Why wouldn't you capitalize on the Dallas hysteria and bring that same energy into daytime. However, I'm not sure Texas was ever really all that much like Dallas (I didn't watch so I have no idea). What is true is that NBC fumbled the bag. I wonder what promotion was done to launch Texas and whether the soft launch through the AW expansion did more harm than good. It clearly left AW on life support for two decades.  

I was extremely underwhelmed by this first episode of season 16 from start to finish. Very curious to hear your thoughts. 

Interesting to see Days have such fluctuations in the ratings. Most of the other soaps seem to range within a few points for the most part...almost like keeping homeostasis but gradually trending down over long periods of time. However, Days is just all over the place. 

1 hour ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/22/91-7/26/91 & 7/29/91-8/2/91:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 8/5/91-8/9/91 & 8/12/91-8/16/91:

Lots of movement except for the bookends. Days and AMC have made quite the return.

2 hours ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Good for ATWT for being #2 for so many weeks in a row. AMC's drop is surprising. Y&R is SO far ahead of every other soap. Y&R was on fire!

YR is pretty much untouchable. It was interesting to see GH back in the 7s for a few weeks not long ago, but none of the soaps are strong enough to match YR right now. 

6 minutes ago, danfling said:

I was thinking that the show aired on that network.    I guess that I should have considered that she was talking about the shows that the network owned.

It could also be that Edge wasn't really performing too well at this ooint while the rest of the ABC lineup was, so as to not highlight this fact, they just didn't include it at all. 

9 hours ago, Chris 2 said:

Sue Ellen is nuts. “Oh, JR has changed!” How many times did we hear that?

I think if they had gone a different direction after Patrick Duffy left - if they had done a redemption arc for JR - that could have been interesting, and Larry Hagman was the actor who could have pulled that off. But getting Sue Ellen back should have taken years. He had a lot of trust to repair.

That is part of the reason I loved season 8. JR realizes that Sue Ellen is the only woman that can handle his [!@#$%^&*]. He also remembers why he was so in love with her to begin with. It could have changed the direction of the show- JR could have still been as sinister and conniving as ever, but his family, Sue Ellen and his son, should have been who he protected against it all.