JoeCool

28 minutes ago, BoldRestless said:

One thing I wonder about is when the Nielsen report says X number of minutes aired, how does that work with time zones. @JAS0N47 has told us that sometimes the shows reserved a few minutes for political ads, and intentionally produced a shorter show, so that makes sense. But for a news interruption like this, I wonder if sometimes it's possible the shows did air in full in some time zones? 

 

According to this article the shooting happened at 5:19 PM in St. Peter's Square https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2021-05/may-13th-1981-remembering-that-fateful-day.html which is 11:19 AM US Eastern time and 8:19 AM Pacific time. So that happened early enough that I guess it broke into Y&R and then the rest of the shows on CBS got preempted cause they stayed on the story all day. Same for ABC breaking into AMC and preempting the rest. So then the 20 minutes that aired of Y&R were East coast and the West Coast, I presume, had no show?

 

But then how come NBC aired partial episodes of all their shows? Did they dip in and out of coverage all day?

 

That information probably isn't available in Jason's report, so I'm just musing really. I guess it comes from the desire that since Sony isn't going to ever open up their vaults, that somewhere, the show aired in full and some fan recorded it.

Hm! The first week of June actually looks LIT with several storylines climaxing. The dungeon storyline is #1 on my list of things I want to see someday! 

 

THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS: Week of May 18 - May 22, 1981

(1:00pm - 60 minutes - CBS)

Jonas suspected that Cash was Casey’s admirer.  Carl investigated the mystery man who tormented Casey with phone calls.  Cash made Nikki believe that Casey had come on to him.  Michael imprisoned Victor in the basement shelter and talked of leaving town with Julia.  Jill decided to seek employment with Victor after an unsuccessful return to hairdressing.  Lucas doubted that Simone had left Lance on Leslie’s account.  Lorie nixed Leslie’s suggestion that they raise Brooks together.  April defended her date with Paul to Greg.

 

THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS: Week of May 25 - May 29, 1981

(1:00pm - 60 minutes - CBS)

Jeff, Patty’s new boyfriend, failed to score points with Paul.  April fumed at Paul for borrowing money from Greg to smooth over Wayne’s theft.  Casey halted Cash’s advances by knocking him cold.  Casey’s tormentor called while Cash was with Casey, disproving Jonas’ theory that Cash was the mystery man.  A psychologist recommended that Brooks remain with Lorie.  Vanessa sided with Leslie in the custody battle.  Eve and Jill learned that Michael was at Victor’s ranch.  Victor remained Michael’s captive.

 

THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS: Week of June 1 - June 5, 1981

(1:00pm - 60 minutes - CBS)

Lorie won custody of Brooks, but agreed to raise him jointly with Leslie.  Leslie promised not to tell Brooks she’s his mother.  Paul discovered Michael at Victor’s ranch, felled him with karate, then freed Victor from his basement digs.  Victor promised to divorce Julia, who collapsed.  Casey, thinking a male patient was her tormentor, gave him a near-fatal stress test.

Very strange that all these storylines are climaxing and the ratings tank!

4 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 5/11/81-5/15/81 & 5/18/81-5/22/81:

 

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 5/25/81-5/29/81 & 6/1/81-6/5/81:

 

Wow! Week of 6/1/81 to 6/5/81: Young and the Restless in 7th place. Ryan's Hope beating Restless!!

What was going on with Restless in May and early June 1981? The week before 5/25 Restless was 6th! 5/18 Restless 4th place...5/11 6th place.

6 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Do you mean Screen Gems?

Yep typo. Corrected it. Screen Gems offered ABC Restless and passed on it.

31 minutes ago, Donna L. Bridges said:

WOW. I had no idea. In all of the reading I've done about Bill Bell this is the first I've heard of this. Of course, learning that NBC almost did a 90 minute DAYS after AW's was also as shocking. Just found ATWT fans who hadn't yet learned that AW was always intended for NBC, never offered to CBS. These things where long-held common knowledge is debunked are fascinating to me. Thanks for another one. 

In the biography, Michael Brockman a high ranking ABC Daytime executive and others watched the debut episode of Restless and at the end admitted ..wow how fresh, bold and new ...and then we are in trouble! HA!

44 minutes ago, Broderick said:

I expect he would've sabotaged the deal.  He and Lee Phillip wanted the show on CBS from day one, lol.  

The Bells yes wanted CBS. I doubt they would have sabatoged the deal. In 1972, the Bells were not in a position to turn down a network and a production studio. CBS had a lot of PG owned soaps. The Bells wanted CBS and they got CBS...after ABC passed and NBC passed...CBS was the only network left. Remember when CBS wanted to expand Restless, Bill resisted and the network told the expansion would happen with or without him. Bill relented.

1 hour ago, kalbir said:

@JoeCool Thank you for the additional info.

You are welcome. @kalbir

Michael Eisner was VP of Daytime at ABC  and was one of the executives involved. Later, of course he became CEO of Disney which owns ABC. Eisner green-lit All My Children and worked at ABC in programming since the late 60s.  He stated in an interview, he regretted passing on Restless. ABC executives regretted soon after Restless premiered noting its youth and freshness which would have been an ideal fit with All My Children.

8 hours ago, kalbir said:

This is the first I've read that ABC was in the running for Y&R. I've read before that NBC passed on Y&R but Bill Bell disproved that by saying he always intended foemr Y&R to go to CBS.

In the biography of Bill Bell, Screen Gems, a SONY company, offred Restless to ABC and they passed stating that ABC wanted to focus on Agnes Nixon's All My Children mostly and One Life to Live and only CBS was left which is what Bill wanted all along.  Screen Gems had a lot of production deals in the 1960s and 70s with ABC so it would have been a natural fit. Yep ABC had a shot and turned it down and shortly after regretted it.

2 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Agnes Nixon thought when Loving in 1983 would debut at 1:30 sandwiched between AMC and OLTL

Loving was slotted at 11.30 am in 1983 up against the second half of The Price Is Right on CBS and Dream House on NBC.

It followed Too Close for Comfort sitcom reruns and was followed by Family Feud.

That was terrible scheduling as soaps in the morning had never worked and it was completely isolated from the rest of the ABC soap lineup.

it might have done better at noon leading into RH?

It wasn't until Oct 84 that Loving was moved to 12.30pm.

I forgot Loving did not start at 12:30. It should have been at 1:30PM like Agnes wanted and suggested. Loving would have not done any better at Noon. Loving should have had AMC's lead-in followed by OLTL.

I forgot all about that ABC morning nonsense. Terrible. Thank you for reminding me and correcting the history!

21 hours ago, GLATWT88 said:

It feels like a lot of the damage done to soaps in the 70s/early 80s came down to scheduling. Very poor decisions by execs which ultimately ended up destroying some great soaps. 

What is interesting is that ABC was offered Restless before CBS. But ABC passed and wanted to focus on All My Children. ABC later said it should have taken Restlesssoon after it debuted. It would have been better for the ABC. Bad decisions. IF ABC chose Restless there would have been no Ryan's Hope and possibly GH would have been canceled in 1978 like Fred Silverman wanted. Restless and AMC on the same network pure ratings gold!

21 hours ago, GLATWT88 said:

It feels like a lot of the damage done to soaps in the 70s/early 80s came down to scheduling. Very poor decisions by execs which ultimately ended up destroying some great soaps. 

ABC made a poor decision by giving Ryan's Hope All My Children's time slot at 1PM. AMC was already established for 5 years in the slot. Yes that 1PM had no soap competition at that time. But doing that to AMC caused the a ratings drop for AMC.

Agnes Nixon thought when Loving in 1983 would debut at 1:30 sandwiched between AMC and OLTL. All My Children would move to 12:30 to 1:30 and go head to head with the Young and Restless. But ABC decided to put Loving against Search for Tomorrow and the strong Young and the Restless. Restless destroyed Loving and seriously damaged Ryan's Hope when it was at 12:30PM.

Bad moves and decisions!

17 minutes ago, kalbir said:

1979 Y&R had so much momentum heading into 1980 but the expansion derailed it.

1977 will be interesting to see the lead up to GL expansion in November that year.

Restless was still strong in 1977. In July 1975 AMC lost its momentum when it was moved to 12:30PM from 1 for Ryan's Hope until January 1977 when it moved back to its 1PM slot then it expanded in April 1977. Agnes Nixon said that derailed AMC from getting to the Number 1 in the season rankings. She was upset about that. She had just sold AMC and OLTL to ABC in January 1975 for almost $10 million and then ABC made the change with RH which they did not own! Ryan's Hope was an awful lead-in to AMC.

32 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 12/10/79-12/14/79 & 12/17/79-12/21/79:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS (FAST NATIONALS): WEEK OF 12/24/79-12/28/79:

Join us in the 80's ratings thread to continue with the weekly ratings! Coming later this year, check back for the first posts from 1977!

Thank you so much Jason. Love seeing all the soaps in the ratings especially All My Children's ascent to number 1 in 1978-1979 season and the strong performances of The Young and the Restless. Cannot wait for 1977.

Wow Fred Silverman made more of mess with AW to 90 minutes! Awful....

4 hours ago, kalbir said:

@MichaelGL It's amazing that Potter/Marland GL is holding its own against massive hit/pop culture phenomenon General Hospital. OTOH Y&R is struggling against All My Children.

NBC entire network was a mess in the early 1980s. As we all know, NBC would have some signs of life in daytime at the start of supercouple Days in 1983 and recover in primetime Fall 1984 with the premiere of The Cosby Show.

GL is strong. Y&R is struggling within itself I guess. With the time change and expansion to an hour it lost its footing but I consider Y&R strong in 1980. All My Children was on fire then and One Life was coming into its own. I know Agnes Nixon was still HW at AMC. I consider All MY Children's best and golden years as 1978 to 1984. I think she also may have been doing some writing for OLTL or consulting. NBC was a mess, both daytime and nighttime.

11 minutes ago, kalbir said:

@JoeCool I'm hardly an expert, but thank you for the compliment

I don't know about time shifting in 1979, but with Y&R expansion on February 4, 1980, there were two different schedules I've seen CBS affiliates use.

10 am Eastern, Mountain, Pacific/9 am Central The Jeffersons reruns

10:30 am/9:30 am Whew!

11 am/10 am The Price is Right

Noon/11 am Local programming

12:30 pm/11:30 am Search for Tomorrow

1 pm/Noon Y&R

2 pm/1 pm As the World Turns

3 pm/2 pm Guiding Light

4 pm/3 pm One Day at a Time reruns

or

9 am Central, Mountain, Pacific The Jeffersons reruns

9:30 am Whew!

10 am The Price is Right

11 am Y&R

Noon Local programming

12:30 pm Search for Tomorrow

1 pm As the World Turns

2 pm Guiding Light

3 pm One Day at a Time reruns

@kalbir you are very insighful. So Y & R at 1PM Eastern was directly against AMC and DAYS.

I bet when Y&R at 11AM must have dominated in that time slot.

9 hours ago, will81 said:

I wonder how many markets shifted Y&R in Feb 1980. I looked at the Top 10 TV markets and most had already moved the show down an hour starting in April 1979 when CBS' new game Whew began. Those that didn't time shift in April 1979 also kept the show in the same timeslot even after its expansion to an hour.

I wonder if this happened in other markets and ultimately how many had to time shift Y&R on Feb 04, 1980. 

I am not sure when Y&R made the shift in all the markets. I know the expansion from 30 minutes to 1 hour slowed its strong performance and path to Number 1.

Maybe the Y&R expert @kalbir can provide some insight.

1 hour ago, Paul Raven said:

Posted these numbers earlier in the thread but to save you searching, here they are again.

Look how much stronger ABC is in the desirable demo. All of their soaps  anyway rank higher with the gals 18-34 than in households. Whereas CBS and NBC are mostly  lower.

No wonder ABC was raking in the $$$

January - August 1978 (Women 18-34 Ranking)

1. Family Feud 9.1 38 ABC (5)

2. AMC 8.6 32 ABC (1)

3. AW 8.3 28 NBC (8)

4. ATWT 8.1 30 CBS (7)

5. All in the Family 7.9 27 CBS (12)

6. Y&R 7.8 31 CBS (6)

7. GL 7.5 27 CBS (10)

8. GH 7.2 25 ABC (4)

9 OLTL 7.2 26 ABC (3)

10. Happy Days 7.1 33 ABC (11)

11. RH 7.1 28 ABC (2)

12. SFT 7.1 28 CBS (9)

13. DOOL 6.9 25 NBC (14)

14. TD 6.5 24 NBC (17)

15. TPIR(2) 6.1 28 CBS (18)

16. Wheel of Fortune 6.1 27 NBC (22)

17. LOL 5.8 25 CBS (15)

18. Match Game 78 5.8 19 CBS (20)

19. TPIR(1) 5.7 28 CBS (19)

20. $20,000 Pyramid 5.6 22 ABC (15)

21. EON 5.5 18 ABC (12)

22. Hollywood Squares 5.4 27 NBC (21)

23. New High Rollers 5.1 24 NBC (21)

24. Card Sharks 4.3 24 NBC (26)

25. New Tic Tac Dough 3.9 21 CBS (23)

26. America Alive 3.5 14 NBC (23)

27. FRFP 3.4 13 NBC (25)

ABC soaps dominated the 18-34 demo and the money came from increased revenues from ads and higher household ratings.  All My Children Number 1 in the demo, Number 1 soap, number 2 overall in daytime and not surprising at Number 2 in the demo is Ryan's Hope...it was on fire then and on the East Coast was All My Children's lead-in from 12:30 to 1 then AMC at 1.

7 minutes ago, mphs19952003 said:

I remember this interview.  He then talked about what he walked into when he defected over to NBC, including their show development and how their daytime was a mess.

Fred Silverman and Jackie Smith - VP for Daytime were instrumental in ABC Daytime's rise. Fred could not do anything about NBC Daytime when he got there...it was a mess.

7 hours ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 9/1/80-9/5/80 & 9/8/80-9/12/80:

 

Summer dropoff for the top 3 shows GH, AMC and OLTL but still strong...nearly 2.0+ higher than Restless, GL and ATWT ABC dominating.

6 hours ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 3/12/79-3/16/79 & 3/19/79-3/23/79:

 

3/12: All My Children Number 1.

3/19: Restless, ATWT and GL top 3 Great week for CBS. AMC bumped to Number 4.

2 hours ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 2/26/79-3/2/79 & 3/5/79-3/9/79:

 

All My Children, General Hospital and Young & Restless battling it out for Number 1!

4 hours ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/28/80-8/1/80 & 8/4/80-8/8/80:

 

Very Strong Number 1 General Hospital and Number 2 All My Children. Another World tanking.

17 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 2/12/79-2/16/79 & 2/19/79-2/23/79:

 

2.12: Y and R Strong 1. ATWT showing some strength at Number 3.

2.19: ALL My Children and GH battling it out for Number 1. Y &R close behind at Number 3. All top 2 over 10 in ratings point.

4 hours ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/14/80-7/18/80 & 7/21/80-7/25/80:

 

Strong ratings from the ABC hour-long shows. Does anyone know what was going on then? Another World is tanking.

14 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 1/29/79-2/2/79 & 2/5/79-2/9/79:

 

All My Children at Number 1. Top 3 shows have 10 rating or higher. Number 2 GH and Number 3 Y&R very strong.

High ratings for Serach then drops. AW and ATWT still fighting into the Top 5. Put pushed out.

12 minutes ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 6/30/80-7/4/80 & 7/7/80-7/11/80:

 

Strong GH at Number 1. AMC at Number 2. OLTL at Number 3. ABC moves higher.

1 hour ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 1/15/79-1/19/79 & 1/22/79-1/26/79:

 

1/15: Very Strong Number 1 GH and Number 2. Y&R also very strong.

1/22 The Young and The Restless at Number 1 with an 11!! Up 1.3 ratings points from 1/15. Very strong GH at Number 2 at 10.7. Strong AMC at Number 3 up. .2 of a ratings point. The top 3 soaps are above 10.0!! Search is strong at Number 4 - solid lead over Number 5 One Life.