3 hours ago, Faulkner said:

Great post, @GLATWT88.

Thank you! I always was interested in the rise and fall of soaps and have done a lot of reading in regards to that aspect of soaps. There's more to it I'm sure as my research isn't as extensive as I like because it's quiet challenging to find a lot of information for these long running soaps.

3 hours ago, Vizion said:

 

It wasn't just Sheila, it had a fantastic timeslot in most markets but Sheila crossing over was a big part of the show getting Y&R's audience and keeping them engaged. And considering the quality of content the show put out as the years progressed I have my doubts it would be where it is for as long as it has been without those two factors 

 

Honestly, I miss GL a bunch, particularly the quality of the performances on that show. It was always a notch above the rest from an acting standpoint and IMO this was even true as late as 2005. 

I was just looking at the 2005 ratings for GL this week. I was watching at the time but I really can't remember off the top of my head what was going on at that particular time. GL actually had a few great weeks (by GL standards) in late 2005 surpassing AMC and DOOL one week each and rating very close to AMC and OLTL throughout that period. Makes me wonder what those numbers could have looked like had GL not already been in a crappy timeslot in several major markets by then. 

Those are amazing demos for AMC. BB really took off.

4 hours ago, Soaplovers said:

Generations had a slow start after nice hype, and 12:30/11:30 for NBC.was a graveyard time slot.

Also, affiliates opting not to air soaps at the designated time slots hurt.  Many a soap died in the 80s.and 90s cause of affiliates 

 

I was just going to say this. There's many factors that led to the failure of new soaps in the 80s/90s. A major one was the handling of new soaps by affiliates. We know how networks and affiliates ended up killing established soaps with schedule changes or moves to graveyard slots, but the same was true for new soaps. Many times new soaps were not getting clearance or getting aired at ridiculous time slots from the very beginning because affiliates refused to give networks back time. Santa Barabra was poorly treated by affiliates once ratings didn't prove to be to their liking. This among other reasons led to its demise. 

 

Competing against established soaps. Another issue with new soaps in the 80s and 90s is that many times these new shows were seen as the solution to another failing show. The majority of new soaps in the 80s and 90s were essentially time slot replacements for already poor performing soaps. The expectation is that these new soaps will save the timeslot and do it quickly - which networks should have known was not the case with soaps. Another issue with this is that the slots these soaps were expected to replace were already hosting a lower rated offering, which were scheduled against major competition thus giving the soap little room to attract an audience. To use Santa Barbara again, it was scheduled up against GL and GH which were both performing well in 83. SB was supposed to pull in a young audience all the while competing directly with two major 80s soaps. Even still Santa Barbara did okay and was widely popular overseas. Who is to say how it would have faired in a better slot. To add to this, the traditional soap audience was decreasing steadily since the 70s as more married women were joining the workforce instead of becoming housewives. So audiences weren't growing, but the expectation was that these soaps would somehow attract the 18-49 demo, the primary audience decreasing. I don't know if networks thought there was some kind of plethora of housewives that they could attract or if they believed their new soaps would steal audiences from the competition. 

 

Expensive. Soaps in the 80s and early 90s were up against quite some major productions in soaps hey day. Soaps are an expensive investment and networks weren't shelling out big budgets to underperforming soaps. While new soaps in the 80s did get a nice budget in advance to launch, when numbers weren't up to par, those budgets were drastically cut and they still were expected to compete with the likes of soaps now doing major location shoots, building insane sets for minor action storylines, and just overall grandiose production values. (This was also true for failing soaps - many of the underperforming soaps were put under extreme stress often having budgets cut drastically while also expected to increase ratings in a short period of time while working under new restraints. Not realistic)

 

Emotional attachment. As already mentioned, soaps are based on attachment. We grow to connect with these characters so deeply because we are invested. We watch them everyday and have seen them go through every trial and tribulation. Creating this attachment takes time, hence the previous point of expense/budget being key. A new soap isn't going to lure viewers based on familiarity so they needed to appeal in appearance/production but without a budget comparable to the competition. 

 

Competition. In the 80s and 90s, talk shows boomed. Audiences tuned into these shows that often exposed the outrageous lives of real people. Also, the 90s saw the growth of major competition from cable networks. All this before OJ even happened.

 

And to add, the new soaps of the 80s and 90s were all meant to attract this ever decreasing 18-49 demo which ultimately alienated a large group of soap viewers. 

47 minutes ago, robbwolff said:

That’s not possible. Santa Barbara is listed and it went off the air in January 1993.

 

You're absolutely right. I just checked and the HH point decreased from 1990/91 season to the 1991/2 season. The fact that no year was listed and I knew off the top of my head that a HH point in 91/92 was equal to 921,000, I thought this was for 93 and looked up the value and it matched. It's unusual that the value goes down, but I should have confirmed. 

 

1990/91 a HH point equals 931,000

1991/92 a HH point equals 921,000

1992/1993 a HH point equals 931,000

5 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

 

4 hours ago, soapfave06 said:

What year are the 4th of July ratings from? OLTL was doing terrible! Actually so was AMC. DAYS and ATWT werw doing really well though. What was going on during this time?

 

I believe those ratings are for 1993. A HH point for the September '92 to Aug./Sept. 93 season was equal to 931,000. The Sept. '91 - '92 season was 921,000. 

 

Edit: This is in fact 1991. My apologizes. A HH point for September 1990 - August 1991 and September 1992 - August 1993 were equal to 931,000 as you see at the bottom of that page. The HH point from September 1991 - August 1992 was equal to 921,000. 

43 minutes ago, titan1978 said:

The big thing with OJ wasn’t just the daily disruption.  It was that an entire new kind of programming replaced it and was also airing 5 days a week.  Never before had cable or a 24 hour news cycle done so much to disrupt viewing habits.

 

Talk shows got more lurid and trashy.  Court TV covered real life crimes all day long.  The Real World was really taking off on MTV, where young viewers were getting their soap fix with what would become kind of a template for modern reality tv.  OJ leads into the Jenny Jones crime and trials, followed quickly by President Clinton on television saying he did not have sexual relations with that woman.

 

Now the question to me is if these folks won’t come back because they finally broke the habit, not so much have discovered all this new content which isn’t as big a revolution as it was then.

 

Right, I feel like the OJ Simpson trial was a catalyst for the decline of soap opera viewers. While some soaps had witnessed declines in viewership in the early 90s, the declines were modest. On the other hand, some soaps actually had grown or shown stable viewership, such as AMC, BB and Y&R. Decline in viewership at the time also correlates to the decline in the traditional audience (housewives) as younger women were forgoing  traditional roles and joining the ever expanding married female workforce (similarly, single parent households increased and both parents working increased during the same time and continue to do so). It's not surprising daytime court shows also increased post-OJ, Judge Judy being a big one that premiered in 1996. The landscape of daytime also made changes in the late 80s and 90s which were already reflecting the desire for "realtiy" with sensational talk shows popping up across the networks and growing throughout most of the 90s. While traditional viewership for soaps were slightly down pre-OJ there's no real way to know how many people were still recording their soaps - there's some information floating around but no concrete data that would help understand what viewership was like and part of it stems from networks not being concerned with VCR viewership because most viewers weren't viewing commercials anyway. Also, the increase of cable in households and the increase of original programming on cable also dipped into soap viewership. One of my other theories is that when soaps started targeting younger demos they ended up neglecting their core, older audience. That's the audience who eventually passes down soap viewing to the younger generations. When I was reading everyone's response on how they got into soaps, the overwhelming majority said they started watching with mom or another family member(s).

 

While I believe that daytime soap operas would have experienced decreased viewership regardless, I believe the OJ trial definitely expedited that decrease and forced away many viewers. Bad choices to bring younger viewers after the declines then drove away dedicated viewers. With the growth in cable programming, and now streaming programming, changing work habits, internet, smartphones, a decline was inevitable. Look at primetime ratings for the same networks. 

48 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

Much as I love and miss AW, I do agree it was a miracle they made it through 20 years of low ratings. The serial killer story in 1987, disgusting as it is to me, seems to have goosed their numbers at a crucial period. 

That's true that the ratings weren't great, but considering there's been little success with new soaps since the 70s with the exception of LOV, AMC, Y&R and BB - none have lasted more than a decade (SB months shy of making it) and Loving wasn't exactly a ratings success. 

 

NBC's issues started in the 80s (actually a bit sooner in the late 70s) when its once strong lineup completely collapsed. Another World, The Doctors, Days of Our Lives all performing solidly for most of the 70s start seeing decreases in the late 70s and then big dips in the early 80s. NBC trying to stay competitive for the next two decades tried new soaps none with much success and unfortunately usually at the hindrance of its established soaps. NBC would have done better doing more to save its failing lineup than with the new soaps. SuBe was an expensive failure that I'm surprised didn't scare off NBC from ever trying a new soap again. While Passions performed well in the younger demos (it wasn't exactly doing as amazingly as some claim), it was far from a ratings success and never did surpass AW in season averages in total viewers even AWs lowest rating last season. Either way, by the mid 90s it may have been too late to save AW anyway. Even the success of Days' possession storyline did little to help AW. I guess all this to say, if NBC spent more time trying to fix its lineup as it did trying to replace it to be competitive with the other two networks, it may have faired better in the end.

46 minutes ago, Chris B said:

If they rush back into production and treat it as “business as usual” then I think those viewers are gone. Instead, I’d plot season premieres for the shows, PROMOTE their returns and make an event out of it. If they come back with the same ole then they’re screwing themselves. Plus I would just film as much as I can and try to get at least 2-3 months ahead just in case we have to shut down again. I wouldn’t go back to air with 2-3 weeks in the can. 

I agree with you on this. If they think they can just pick up whenever production starts rolling and start airing when they have episodes ready and expect those that have already tuned out to come back without doing some major promo - it's just not going to happen.  

1 hour ago, Faulkner said:

Again, I wonder if a lot of these pandemic viewership losses will be permanent. When casual viewers break the daily habit (see O.J.), they are awfully hard to get back.

Definitely worrisome. I will say that unlike during O.J. viewers are aware that there is a hiatus of sorts and that soaps are airing repeats and that there's going to be an extended break. While during, O.J. the impression I've gotten from reading about its impact on soaps and from that documentary on ABC is that viewers just didn't know when to tune in, whether their show would get preempted that day and if they did know their show would often be scheduled at some odd hour in the middle of the night so they had to program their vcrs. I wonder if those viewers lost all those stories that were played out those months since it seems like networks were still trying to air the soaps just not at very convenient times. 

So GH got it's number 1 but with new lows in the 18-49 and 18-34 demo. These shows need something and they need it fast. 

2 minutes ago, Alan said:

I think it's also because Alan was part of PGP management, and still sees himself as part of management. I didn't like how he protected PGP and MADD by pivoting when Denise Pence brought up the Zaslow situation.

 

Also if P&P someday realizes that it is sitting on a potential IP goldmine in the form of its soap archives and licenses, who are they going to ask to organize/market it? He probably doesn't want to burn bridges.

He should solicit questions from fans in advance, and have a list of those questions ready at hand during these awkward pauses. It's not that difficult.

Agree! I see some great questions pop up on the chat and I hope that he would ask some of them.

54 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

This pretty much sums it up.

This is the most I have laughed. The Larkin story by Terrell was funny. All of my favorites were on today. Krista talked to Bruce Barry recently. And a shout out from Bryan Buffington. Krista inviting everyone to LA to see her..cute.

I can get Alan's frustration as he's hoping these work out smoothly for his sake and the audience, and I know the tech issues have been annoying in the past but I was thoroughly entertained with Kristi's antics today, talking over people, her reaction and logging on and off again. She seems sweet however. I didn't mind it. Besides, Alan could have prevented all of this so it's not entirely her fault. Also, sometimes Alan doesn't know how to follow up or continue the dialogue and there's awkward moments in conversation because of that and I'm like oh no...someone say something. 

8 minutes ago, DRW50 said:

A part of me wonders if he's worried about legal action, as he was in PR. 

 

It's a real contrast to the Loving chat, where it seemed nobody involved gave a [!@#$%^&*] about decorum with backstage tales.

Yes, I watched that one as well and they were definitely ready to spill. I mean that's the reason I watch these anyway, I want to know what was happening behind the scenes, how actors got along good and bad, funny moments, etc. 

It's such a hot mess. Was it just me or did Michael seems annoyed at one point too.

 

I just think Kristi is also a bit tech challenged and doesn't know wtf is going on...I'm laughing at all this.

I mean probably very unlikely, but it would be awesome to get an 85th anniversary movie to just see all the characters back in action. I miss them. 

 

Probably, very unlikely but considering most of the long running soaps ended in the last 20 years, and 85 is a big one would be nice even a more fitting reunion would be okay. Considering nothing was done for AW's 50th...not that I'm aware, this probably is a long shot. 

3 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Aw, Kristi is the drunk aunt at a family reunion that no one wants to sit next to. 

I know...lol. She's all over the place and I kind feel bad. They should do some sort of test run. 

1 hour ago, yrfan1983 said:

My dream Jill week:

Day 1: Brenda Dickson 70s (2 half-hour eps combined into 1)

Day 2: 1980 Bond Gideon

Day 3: Deborah Adair

Day 4: Brenda D 80s

Day 5: Jess Walton

The many faces of Jill week. 

 

I'm not sure if TPTB are too interested in going earlier than the 90s. I think since the theme weeks started, we've only had two 80s episodes and both were during Nikki's week. They didn't even air an 80s episode for Katherine's week. We did get one other 80s episode during the Friday classics.

I honestly try to watch but I have no idea what is going on ever, so I honestly just turn it off. Yesterday, all I saw was Hope running towards Marlena and John like she just saved the world and Steve apparently didn't kill someone. I was like wtf is this 

2 hours ago, SoapDope said:

The more I have read in recent years about behind the scenes of Dallas, a lot of people seem to not care much for Victoria Principal. I read an interview with John Beck (Mark Graison) from a few years ago and he came out and said point blank he preferred working with Linda Gray more than Victoria. He had good things to say about most of the cast.

 

 

Omg, yes! I had a feeling and it may be completely wrong that there was some unspoken tension between Linda Gray and Victoria Principal. VP never reprised her role in the films or reboot even though she was offered the role. The two never acknowledge each other on their insta accounts on any of their flashback posts even though both have acknowledged other cast members. Also, other things I've read gave off that impression but it wasnt anything concrete. I did read that BTS LG was much friendlier than VP, not that VP was rude but she was more standoffish. 

Since, I started watching GL back in '03, I was always curious why my local CBS station in New York aired it at such an "off" time slot. All the other soaps on the three networks were scheduled after noon and before 4 and were pretty much tightly packed in that timeframe, except for GL which was on at 10am. I remember searching online back in 2003 and several times after and not being successful in getting a clear answer why, but the question came to mind again today and I have finally found an article that answered the question. Perhaps Variety has updated their archives, as this article is from 1995. 

 

CBS dims P& G ‘Light’ to make ‘Date’

July 12, 1995

The CBS Television Stations group has alienated the network’s largest daytime advertiser to make room for “Day & Date,” a new magazine show being jointly produced by the Eye web and Group W Prods.

 

With its ratings diminishing, Procter & Gamble’s “Guiding Light,” the oldest continuing daytime soap, is being shunted to 10 a.m. from its longtime 3 p.m. slot by WCBS New York. The web’s flagship station wants to air “Day” live at 3 p.m. beginning Sept. 11.

 

KCBS Los Angeles, meanwhile, has notified the advertiser that it intends to permanently shunt the soap to a deadly 9 a.m. slot after temporarily having moved it there from the afternoons to make room for 0 J . Simpson trial coverage.

 

Naturally, the moves have not gone over well with the advertiser. But Group W Prods, hasn’t had the easiest time, either.

 

When the Westinghouse stations renewed their affiliation pacts with CBS for 10 years, the deal involved a jointly funded effort to clear Group W syndicated shows on both its stations and the CBS O& Os.

 

Initially, “Day” – the first project to emerge from the venture – had been pitched as a live, afternoon, early fringe news lead-in series. But some fiercely independent general managers at CBS-owned stations, which are the weakest of the Big Three network O& O groups, balked at having to choose “between a low-rated soap and an unproven afternoon magazine format over which they have no creative control. Group W is allotting 51% of the budget for “Day” and calls the shots, at least until the networks are fully deregulated.

 

When it became apparent that some CBS stations would not carry “Day” directly before their afternoon newscasts, Group W broadened the parameters. It asked only that stations air it in post-3 p.m. early fringe slots. Now, however, CBS-owned WBBM Chicago has confirmed to Variety that it intends to carry “Day” at 12:37 a.m., after “The Late, Late Show With Tom Snyder.”

 

The station in the nation’s third-ranked market is committed to Multimedia’s “Phil Donahue” and “Sally Jessy Raphael,” leaving only the out-of-pattern slot. But Group W apparently is not all that upset about the move, since it’s inheriting a time period that has averaged a 4 rating.

 

KCBS, meanwhile, could end up installing “Day” at 3 p.m. after all, leading into its 4 p.m. news. The station, which could set its fall sked as early as this week, has only two hours available from 9 a.m.-4 p.m. and three hour syndie strips to fill them, the others being Tribune’s “Geraldo” and the new Carnie Wilson talkshow from Warner Bros.

 

Group W is producing “Day” as an afternoon show and offering five live feeds from 3-8 p.m. to accommodate stations.

 

So far, the syndicator has been able to license “Day” in only about 60% of the U.S. because of the early fringe restriction.

 

As Westinghouse and CBS quietly work to resolve their scheduling differences, P& G is grumbling loudly about its predicament.

 

Procter & Gamble Prods., which lenses “GL” and two other daytime dramas, wields considerable clout because of the hundreds of millions it spends each year on network TV.

 

“It’s tough enough working against talkshows and normal daytime competition,” says a dismayed Phil Dixson, senior VP-managing director of daytime program services at DMB& B, the ad agency that oversees production for P& G, adding that downgrades to morning timeslots spell disaster for soaps.

 

“We’re assuming that several other CBS O& Os are going to follow suit, if not in the fall then later in winter,” Dixson says. That would make it far easier for restless affiliates elsewhere to do the same. “Our concern is that this will have ripple effects that will backfeed across the country.”

 

Asked if P& G will use its ad leverage to prevent further station defections, Dixson says he’d “rather not comment on that,” but adds, “Things like this obviously don’t help the conversation.”

 

The company spent $270 million last year on daytime TV ads, including $53 million on network buys for CBS’ three serials, according to Competitive Media Reporting.

 

A WCBS exec said the decision to shift timeslots was made at the network level after discussions over “lots of delicate issues that needed to be addressed.” The 10 a.m. slot becomes available when talker “Marilu” ends its seasonlong run in September.

 

So far, other O& O’s have not followed N.Y. and LA.: WBBM Chicago is expected to keep “Guiding Light” at 2 p.m.

 

Still, the show can ill afford to lose any large-market clearances. For the season to date, “Guiding Light” has earned a 4.3 national rating and a 15 share, according to Nielsen, continuing a downward spiral from 5.2/18 for the same period last season. (This is a pretty shitty comparison considering that all soaps had dropped from the same period from the previous season due to pre-emptions from the O.J. trial. Also, these numbers seem to align pretty closely with the numbers posted on Wikipedia. GL's household reach in the 1993/94 season was still pretty strong and it was less than a rating point away from GH for the past three seasons - it's direct time slot competitor. In fact, in two of those three past seasons GL was less than .5 points away in household ratings. GH was also showing steady decreases in HH ratings from 1990-1994 while GL was holding strong.) 

 

In major markets, as with CBS’ entire daytime schedule, the show’s done worse: For the May sweeps, “GL” earned a meager 2.6/8 in Gotham and a 1.0/5 at 9 a.m. in LA. The New York number is expected to decline further with the morning timeslot shift, which threatens to drag down prices for national ad time.

 

“It seems, lifestyle-wise, it’s a busier time for typical soap viewers, and they find it easier to make time in the afternoon for soap operas, which require fairly attentive viewing,” says Julie Friedlander, senior VP-director of national broadcast negotiations at Ogilvy & Mather.

 

Lynn Leahey, editor-in-chief at Soap Opera Digest, expects legions of loyal viewers to be “frustrated” by the change, but suggests a morning slot is better than none at all.

 

Dixson says CBS execs have denied persistent rumors that “GL” would be axed after a record 43 years on TV and 15 on radio, dating to 1937. The network dumped “Search for Tomorrow,” another long-running P& G daytimer, in l986.

 

To prop up the serial, P& G recently hired a new exec producer, Michael Laibson, to replace Jill Farren Phelps, who was moved to P& G-owned “Another World” on NBC.

 

https://variety.com/1995/tv/features/cbs-dims-p-amp-g-light-to-make-date-99129328/

1 hour ago, Gray Bunny said:

It was bad. LOL. I feel like anyone can make these nowadays with their iPhone. Maybe their step up from iPhone quality was using a boom mic and a homemade lighting kit? Seriously though, when I watch something of this quality (or lack thereof), it actually gets my creative juices going because clearly ANYONE can put something online. The difference here is actual star power (out of work soap actors). 

 

I'd actually continue watching it, in a trainwreck fashion. But one thing they desperately need to do is give us establishing shots! It was nothing but up close or tight shots of the rooms they were in. The understanding of the space of the club was very disjointed, showing a tight shot of the bar, a tight shot of the stage, a tight shot of a sitting area. It wasn't until Morgan Fairchild first showed up you got a sense of what the room looked like overall. 

 

Tight shots of their kitchens/offices, etc. also needed establishing shots. Director of Photography 101. 

Oh wow. Now that you mention that I totally get it. As I was watching, I kept asking why is it that I don't know what I'm looking and clearly the shots didn't help identify or establish any of these locations. Everything was tight. Clearly direction matters...maybe you should ask them to take over. 

38 minutes ago, Gray Bunny said:

 

Thanks for posting! This, along with Jason47's info seems to show DAYS' highest rating with an 8.1.... Though not their highest Nielsen number (they got 9's in the 70's), but the overall total viewers may be significantly higher? 

 

What a continuing mystery, all these claims of high ratings and being No. 1 for so many soaps

Well, that first part is somewhat true. A household rating is the percentage of tv homes that tuned into a particular program. The weight of a household point is adjusted according the number of tv households and these numbers have continued to grow, which means that the weight of a point has also continued to grow. Let me give you an example

 

Y&R scored a 7.0 rating in HH in 1982. Each household point in 1982 was equivalent to 729,000 homes. This would mean that on average 5.1 million TV homes were tuned into Y&R for that hour.

 

Let's say Y&R also scored a 7.0 HH rating in 1992. By 1992, a rating point was now equivalent to 921,000 households, which would mean that on average 6.4 million homes were tuned in to the episode.

 

Households don't equal total viewers as the number of people watching in each household varies. Although, higher household is a good indicator that more people are watching obviously. This is also a simplified explanation as Nielsen ratings are very antiquated in how they measure ratings and it's not like there is a measuring tool attached to all of our devices to truly measure how many people really watch anything.

 

But to answer your question an 8.1 HH rating in 1988 for Days would almost certainly equal more viewers than a 9 it scored in say 1978. 

 

 

When I saw this posted on a different thread, my first thought was that the title sounds like a soap parody. 

2 hours ago, AbcNbc247 said:

 

  Hide contents

The rumor is that a teenaged Allie is coming back sometime this summer with Sami, and that she's going to stir up some trouble.

 

 

2 hours ago, Bright Eyes said:

 

  Hide contents

It's not a rumour that Allie is coming back. It was literally in the Summer Previews.

 

 

I think that's a good directions for the characters. Thanks for confirming. 

41 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

Thanks will definitely check that out I know some posters share a lot of the same info here at SON and DR both are great resources to read!

It's definitely a nice reference, wish more was persevered and easily accessible for other magazines as well.

 

I wish we did have more conclusive information for the Steve and Betsy wedding. Overall, ATWT did well in 1983/84. The articles I read from 1983 and 1984 for ATWT confirm that the couple was definitely popular with viewers and that their relationship did help boost ATWT ratings. ATWT saw yearly increases the 2 years Meg was on. Also, the 1980s ratings pretty much confirm that even though GH was the most popular soap throughout the majority of the 1980s overall, it wasn't unlikely that a soap could dethrone it from the top spot for a week or more. So while I believe it may be possible that Steve and Betsy's wedding could have scored ATWT a number 1 for the week or day or even just the timeslot, I am finding it hard to believe it actually had 20 million viewers. I'm not saying it didn't, because I don't have proof otherwise, but considering all the articles from 1984 I've seen written up on the wedding, none of them mention this incredible feat. I haven't seen a mention of it from a reliable source from that time period or with any actual proof which makes me believe this misinformation started or eventually found it's way onto blogs, websites, and forums. Maybe someone heard that ATWT had a 20 share for the week and thought it meant 20 million. Maybe someday someone could find published ratings for that week. 

8 minutes ago, soapfan770 said:

 

Thanks for sharing that! I remember reading before that AMC and OLTL both hit #1 in 1987 for various reasons (A rape

story involving at AMC if I recall right)

Let me share the website. I honestly just stumbled upon it today and it's a great resource. I just didn't know where to post it so I could share with everyone. I will say for those of you who posted questions about OLTL, it is very possible that OLTL may have had days where it was the number 1 soap,because it did have many weeks where it ranked 2nd or 3rd in 1987 and 1988. Now, how anyone would've been able to get ahold of that exact information for daily numbers in the late 80s, I'm not completely sure -unless they worked for the networks or nielsen. The magazines I found usually just list the ratings for the week. 

 

Here's the website for those of you interested: 

https://daytimeroyaltyonline.com/vintage-voldemort-news-tidbits-t16990.html

21 minutes ago, BetterForgotten said:

Another claim I believe that was later debunked was OLTL going to #1 the week Vicki went to heaven.

Do you know what week her heaven storyline happened? It looks like OLTL did in fact go to number 1 (tie) for one week in 1987 that I was able to find...it may be a week that isn't available, tho. I will say that OLTL did have several weeks at number 3 and a few at number 2 throughout 1987.