GLATWT88

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

I would say a 2.9 is actually a great improvement. Whether or not that would have maintained in the long run is difficult to know. It also helped that the PC one off probably got the same clearance as OLTL at the time. 

1 hour ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

Goodness, SB won Best Show Emmys 3 times & NBC only carried it for 9 years. I definitely think 8 years was reasonable for PSSN. I'm not sure if they promoted it well & I'm not sure they really appreciated the viewers they had ... but you could say that about NBC & any soap they ever had!

I think it stayed on as long as it did, because NBC knew that once Passions was cancelled they weren't replacing it with another soap and that would leave Days alone while the other two networks still had a pretty full lineup. Whether or not NBC cared, I'm not sure. I think it outperforming Sunset Beach and showing growth initially was pleasing to NBC, but it never really left the bottom. 

On 8/20/2023 at 10:28 PM, JoeCool said:

Passions was a good show but NBC never gave it a chance.

 

NBC Daytime never really recovered after Another World plunged in the late 70s. Been at the bottom for over 40 years until NBC yanked DAYS off.

I am well aware of that. Thanks.

And viewers who started watching DAYS in the 80s still watch now. Soaps hook in viewers for a long time...that is part of the plan of the headwriters at least that is what the greats did like Irna Phillips, Agnes Nixon and Bill Bell and others did.

You don't think NBC gave Passions a chance? It was on NBC for 8 years and consistently low rating. Even in the key demo it ranked low with a few good weeks thrughout its run where it was in the middle of the pack. While it did see some small growth in viewership the first few years, like all other soaps numbers were eroding and with each year less and less eyes on the screen. 

2 hours ago, kalbir said:

@YRfan23 In the promo for Dina's death, it was mentioned Dina arrived May 27, 1983 so I took that date as Marla Adams debut.

Capitol not full clearance either so that maybe played a part. I believe we'll see near the end of Capitol's run that their clearance dropped.

I did notice that clearance was quite high for Capitol, but I do wonder what ATWT viewers were switching to at that time. Not that all ATWT viewers were also watching GL, but I assume there were many CBS households that watched the lineup through just as there were ABC households. 

I similarly made the inference that placing a new half hour soap between established soaps (in particular hour long ones) would likely hinder networks from preempting - which seems like the case for Capitol and BB.

25 minutes ago, DM James Fairbanks said:

I think CBS was more patient.  They knew 12:00 was an iffy timeslot.  Supposedly Bill Bell wanted to cancel after 9 months, but CBS talked him into waiting as the ratings were rising slowly.  As what was said here earlier, Y&R did well where it aired and that lead to it being picked up by more markets.

Ryan's Hope showed promise of being a #4 soap for ABC in 1978, but I believe that is when Claire Labine moved to the "movie" stories.

I think Return to Peyton Place could have been a contender if NBC gave it six more months with the faster pace, but Lin Bolan wanted a slot for How to Survive a Marriage.  P&G probably made a fuss about cancelling Somerset.

Finally, I think For Richer, For Poorer had potential as well, but it seemed to have the lowest number of clearances.  Again, it would have been interesting to see how it would have done with clearances in the 90+ stage.

Definitely. I think clearance and scheduling were the greatest downfall of soaps in the 70s and 80s.

8 minutes ago, cityfan01 said:

Didn't they almost do this with Port Charles before cancelling it?  I remember they aired a special 1-hour episode in One Life's time slot in early 2003 and, while they got higher ratings than normal, were not at the same level as OLTL.  Rumor at the time was that Port Charles would be moved to either 1:00 or 1:30 central and OLTL cut back to a half hour, creating the 3-hour ABC soap block and giving the 11:30 time slot back to affiliates.  When the ratings for the special didn't pan out, I think that is when they decided just to outright cancel PC and keep OLTL as an hour. 

Wow, I never heard of this supposed cut to OLTL. Seems like a really bad move. The obvious choice would be to drop PC and return the half hour, instead of cutting OLTL which was fine (as fine as soaps in 2003 could be) and putting PC which was showing little to no signs of life and had been weakening for a few years in the other half hour. I mean the networks have made poorer choices...

15 hours ago, will81 said:

1979 was a solid year and I was curious about the calendar year ratings since Y&R never managed to hit #1 in the seasonal ratings. I just did the top 5 which covered

Jan 1 - 5 1979 up to Dec 24 - 28 1979 (52 weeks)

1. Y&R 9.4 36% (24 weeks at #1)

2. GH 9.2 31% (18 weeks at #1)

3. AMC 8.9 32% (8 weeks at #1)

4. OLTL 8.3 29%

5. GL 8.1 28% (2 weeks at #1)

Interesting that 4 shows had a crack at the top spot for that year and OLTL never managed #1 but still came in 4th overall for the full year. 

If anything YR is proof that a new soap debuting after the 60s could be HIGHLY successful. I do consider RH to be a successful 70s debut as well, but it was stable in the middle of the pack- what I'm saying is YR was able to get to the top. While there were a few soaps that debuted in the 70s and 80s that had moderate success, none really were a top ratings contender. Some may argue that BB, but it never outdid Capitol at its peak and it lagged in the key demo until the 2000s when all the soaps were floundering anyway. 

30 minutes ago, TEdgeofNight said:

Just FYI, Jason already posted the numbers for Steve & Betsy's wedding. They are at the bottom of page 46 of this thread.

Thanks for pointing that out. Seems very unlikely that this 20 million figure is accurate with a 7.8/31. Unless the other days were really low rating, there's no way the week would have averaged pretty much where ATWT is currently rating for the weeks above in March 83. I wonder the source of this "fact" because it's been repeated countless times and in many publications. 

On 8/18/2023 at 10:41 PM, JoeCool said:

YES ABC could have done more. ABC never pushed to get more affilates to air Edge. When Loving premiered, it should have sandwiched between AMC and OLTL. AMC at 12:30PM. Loving at 1:30PM, OLTK at 2PM and GH at 3PM. Then have RH at 12 Noon and Edge at 4PM.  ABC botched Loving with the 11:30AM slot when it premiered in June 1983. Then RH got moved to the morning and/or noon from 12:30PM. ABC really did not figure out its late morning/early afternoon schedule. Moving AMC to 12:30pm directly against Y&R would have stunted Restless' ratings in the 12:30PM slot. YR would have not have dominated the 12:30PM slot against RH and Loving.

I think pushing AMC to 12:30 and sandwiching Loving between AMC and OLTL would have been beneficial to Loving and the network as AMC was on fire and would have been a much better match up against YR (also doing extremely well) instead of a new soap trying to establish itself. I am curious to see what the affiliate numbers will be for Loving in the ratings thread. I feel like affiliates would have been less likely to preempt Loving if it was between AMC and OLTL as placing local programming between the two soaps just seems unlikely but who knows. 

3 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

James terrorizing Barbara with Gunnar her savior and the Steve/Betsy/Craig triangle featured in this month and in March.

I watched the clip you posted. Some good stuff. I am curious what the numbers for Betsy and Steve's wedding in May 84 will turn out to be. I know there's the much repeated 20 million, but there's also much doubt surrounding that figure. 

2 hours ago, Soapsuds said:

Trapper John and The Jefferson's were Loving direct competition that night. NBC had the movie Evita which finished last in its timeslot with a 12.0 ranking 33rd for the week.

1 hour ago, JAS0N47 said:

I was going to provide the quarterly hour ratings for that matchup, but 6/20-6/26/83 is a fast national week, so those are not available.

Thanks for all the insights into ratings history. I love looking back with an analytical lens.

On the latest ratings, ATWT is showing growth after trailing in the previous years. And Days almost hitting 7s! 

1 minute ago, Soapsuds said:

I didn't remember the 2 hour movie. It posted a 13.3 rating and beat all the Primetime soaps that were in reruns.

That's a decent start. I doubt it will mean much in daytime numbers. 

Also, interesting to see a repeat of Trapper John at the very top. 

4 hours ago, Manny said:

Looking forward to seeing how premiere of Loving fared against other soaps that week in 1983!  

It had a two hour premiere in primetime on a Sunday night. It just cracked the top 30 against mostly repeats I'm assuming since it was in late June. I'm wondering how that translated to its first week in daytime. 

59 minutes ago, Broderick said:

What's sad about the station clearance of The Edge of Night is to run the math on its potential.  It clocked in at a 2.8 for the week of 10/12/1984, with a clearance of only 106 stations.  If you take that 2.8 rating and extrapolate it to clearance of 208 stations (which General Hospital had), you'd be looking at a rating of 5.5 or 5.6 for that particular week, placing it just behind Capitol.  (And this is when Edge was already in its death throes.)  

I wouldn't be surprised if it could have performed well beyond that. Just a few months earlier it was able to get a 5 with 157 stations and 80 pct clearance. Unfortunately EON never got full clearance or anywhere near it after its switch to ABC. 

1 hour ago, Broderick said:

My opinion only --- no sources to cite.  TWO actors were cut from that storyline and replaced fairly quickly.  One was the actress who played Molly Sherwood, and the other was the actor who played Kelly McGrath.  

Henry Slesar often plotted his storylines FAR in advance, dropping random little clues as he went.  For the storyline to work correctly, the actress playing Molly Sherwood needed to be a motherly type, ditzy but loving, a lady who appeared to be kind, open & caring.  The recast actress (Laurinda Barrett) seemed to imbue those qualities a little better than the original, who'd already seemed a bit brusque and sinister.    

The actor playing Kelly needed to be a young leading man who appeared to be all-consumed with his puppets, a friendly sort with no agenda or secrets, who'd just popped over from Europe to spend a few months with Aunt Nancy and Uncle Mike.  As the story progressed, other characters would begin discovering that he had a certain secret past in Rome that didn't align with his pleasant personality (things that involved an injured person and a knife attack).  The recast actor (Allen Fawcett) seemed to imbue those qualities a bit better than the original, who'd already seemed extra-fidgety, awkward, and uneasy.  

I've always believed Henry Slesar & Nick Nicholson recast those two roles because the original actors were "telegraphing" too much of the storyline that was still many months from being told.  

Thanks for the insight. I didn't realize that someone else was recast as well. I thought maybe there were more mysterious reasons for the change. 

2 hours ago, EONGLOLTL said:

Breaks my heart to see Edge with so few affiliates!  I think I remember reading there were going to be more affiliates dropping in the first of the year so it was no longer profitable for P&G.  

Yet, it's performing at the same level as SB and SFT which have higher clearances. It really was poorly handled and could have succeed under the right hands. 

2 hours ago, GymnastGuy said:

Here is a great article about Dennis Parker/Wade Nichols from The Edge of Night.  At the time of his death his partner was Joey Allan Phipps who was the first Kelly McGrath in 1980:

https://www.therialtoreport.com/2017/06/25/wade-nichols/

Wow, quite a read. Such a fascinating backstory. It says a lot about his character that everyone seemed to love him and had such high praise. Seems like the EON cast was really supportive.

I am curious about the details of Joey being cut from EON. It was so vague. 

Could a 4th hour of soaps been successful on ABC? After acquiring Edge and expanding three soaps, ABC had a four hour block of soaps that consisted of RH, AMC, OLTL, GH, and EON. NBC would later have a similar situation after picking up SFT. Neither network seemed to make these 4 hour blocks work. While NBC was in terrible shape, ABC soap trio was booming. RH and EON were performing reasonably for a time considering clearance. Could ABC have done more to maintain this fourth hour? It held on to the 12:30 slot for a while but never really seemed to make it work. 

2 hours ago, Cat said:

I think her family came from South Africa, but she grew up in Britain. Then she headed to the US to work in FASHUN. And she's been here ever since so her accent is a mix. Happens to a lot of ex-pats.

Totally agree with you assessment of Jessel on the show. She feels like she married beneath her and she can't stand it. She's looking to parachute out and trade up, but she's probably scared about going it alone with two twin toddlers.

I think she's great for the show. I'm just not sure if these accounts stanning for her are actually condoning her weird/sometimes rude behavior or if they're saying she's great for TV. 

I'm curious as to her age when she moved. I worked abroad for a few years and just moved back and a great number of my colleagues were from South Africa. We were a good mix of accents - the only one that really struck me was a British woman who had worked abroad many years and her accent was Americanized but there was a uniqueness to it that didn't quite fit. Everyone else regardless of time abroad seemed to retain their national accent - I do know that some adults can experience a bit of a change after many years but usually very subtle. 

I'm not a Jessel fan and I'm not getting the hype over on Twitter either. I see the insecurity from a mile away - it's in her weird marriage situation to a guy she definitely feels is beneath her. I think in her mind she should have done better but in reality that was what she could get. She treats him horribly and you can't tell me 2 years of no sex is normal in a relationship and that she has other friends that think that's okay. There is some other problems there. Her reaction to Jenna's gift sucked. Was it ugly? Yes. But it brought out her own insecurities...instead of owning it and playing with it...you can tell from her whole demeanor, her frumpy walk, her attitude and what she was saying that she was so uncomfortable in how she looked. 

Also, did she go to the Dorit school of accents. Her accent is neither here nor there. I can understand that accents evolve over time, but for the most part they're pretty fixed after puberty unless you are forcibly trying to make some drastic changes. 

GL has taken a tumble. It was doing so well. 

Days seems to be on an uptick. It's performing solidly in the 6s or high 5s. 

On 4/18/2023 at 2:49 AM, Soapsuds said:

I'd say about 90% of the male Dallas cast was closeted gay. I can't believe there were so many. Most were the supporting cast except for Dack Rambo.

Actors married to other women while living with their partner, lover, boyfriend.

Who do we know? I'm really so unaware when it comes to these things.

Also, I looked up Chris Bernau's wiki (I've been watching a lot of 1981 GL) and saw that he died of AIDS related complications in the 80s. My first assumption was he may have been gay I did see his name on the list up a few posts, so seems it's true. Do we know if he was out to cast or if he had any partners? 

9 minutes ago, kalbir said:

We saw that from February 4, 1980 to June 5, 1981.

Yes, you're right! 

17 minutes ago, EONGLOLTL said:

I've always wondered if CBS time slot changes in 1981 would have been served better with Search for Tomorrow moving to 1:30 instead of 2:30.  I don't know about the demos for either show but CBS was weakened with cancelling Search and putting on Capitol.  As the World Turns head to head with One Life to Live seems a stronger move for CBS and that kept the one, two punch of As the World Turns and Guiding Light together.

I'm curious what a YR/ATWT/GL vs AMC/OLTL/GH at 1/2/3pm would have looked like. I do believe YR benefited from its 12:30 timeslot, but it was obviously successful for just being a solid soap. YR and GL were performing well. GL performed solidly until 1985 and then it started to slip. The 84/85 season had YR and GL ranked 3rd and 4th above OLTL (5). YR was a tenth of a point below AMC and it was only up from there.

The 12:30 slot proved to be less successful on the other networks starting in the 80s with several half hour soaps taking up short residencies. BB's success is in large part due to not being placed at 12:30 like most of the other soap and being bookended by two established soaps, one of which would soon lead daytime for decades. 

1 hour ago, JAS0N47 said:

The Nielsen books start listing VCR percentages at some point in 1988 or 1989.

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 5/24/82-5/28/82 & 5/31/82-6/4/82:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 6/7/82-6/11/82 & 6/14/82-6/18/82:

Wow! Ryan's Hope beating out GL and YR. It pains me to see GL in the 6s after such incredibly strong weeks and numbers. 

49 minutes ago, Gray Bunny said:

As I was going through late '81 and early '82, I actually forgot we were about to see the network switch for SFT. It really is a shame CBS dropped it, considering it was still in the middle of the pack, beating all of NBC and 1, sometimes 2 (Ryan's Hope) ABC shows. 

I think ABC's dominance in the late 70s/ early 80s really played with networks decision making. They were making choices that would ultimately further harm their long running soaps. I've been watching bits of 1981 GL and the ratings here support how well the show was performing in spite of heavy competition from GH, but it seems like even CBS wasn't satisfied. I found the following on Wikipedia, unsure of how true it is but it definitely fits the narrative of the networks making such impulsive decisions around these years...

Writer Marland quit in 1982 due to a dispute over treatment of his friend Jane Elliot, when the Carrie multiple personality disorder storyline did not carry Guiding Light's ratings to #1 above its rival, General Hospital. Elliot was fired by Allen Potter, and Marland ended the storyline. Before Marland quit, Guiding Light won its second Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Drama, for the 1981 – 1982 television season, and despite Marland's departure, things looked very well for this long time CBS drama.