bongobong

There should have been a scene of Liam walking into the jewellery store to buy the engagement ring and everyone shouting his name like they did for Norm at Cheers.

I didn't make anything up out of thin air. I correctly pointed out that BTG's demos (both overall and retention of its lead-in) these past 4 weeks since its second week of preemptions have been worse than it performed previously. I never said that CBS soaps always improved its year-ago time period performance, I pointed out that BTG did until the fall. That was a misquote on your part. Before the Labor Day week repeat break BTG was performing well above The Talk in demos year-over-year. Now it is not. Yes, I know that broadcast is falling overall, that's why I pointed out that B&B - its lead-in - was relatively stable year-over-year this week in those demos in making the comparison. If you think I'm wrong and the show had a worse 4 week demo span, please present your evidence and I'll be happy to correct my post. In other words:

Respectfully disagree, but I think CBS is likely at fault. I'm on record defending the show's ratings up though the summer but there's no denying the show has had a rough fall demo-wise. It used to easily improve the demos year over year and now it's struggling to keep pace and has fallen behind The Talk twice in W18-49. Since its first week of reruns it never improved its demos unless Bold did the same. Now a month after its second rerun week, its overall demos & retention has dropped. Stopping repeat weeks will help the show more than any amount of promotion.

I don't want to rain on any parades but CBS can't thrilled with BTG only up 0.01 in both demos over The Talk's year ago numbers despite Bold being relatively stable. The demo retention out of B&B has fallen by around 10% since it returned from its second week of repeats in September. It's overall audience has grown the past few weeks but it's getting older, at least on linear.

Nice, Maya & Amber are back!

I think the rewrites are a big reason why the show has been so successful. I have my doubts if the show would still be on the air if it moved to a banking 5+ months of material model that BTG & Days uses. I'm glad Liam stayed as well, Scott always shows up and never phones it in. You're not wrong, that was noticeable. I'm glad the smoothing issues that @ChickenNuggetz92 pointed out are fixed now. That was way more distracting to me. Overall, I've been enjoying this month quite a bit. Katie seems to acting more in character than she was for most of the summer. Taylor dealing with the breakup like an adult after the initial hurt has been a pleasant surprise. Looking forward to more scenes between her, Deacon & Sheila. Deke has been one of the smoother additions to the canvas in a long time. He gives off the young Deacon vibe, and his interactions with his Deacon & Hope seem natural. On a superficial note, JMW looks amazing.

A new low for BTG in W18-49, and the second time this season it was below The Talk's year ago rating in that demo. Only 0.01 over The Talk year-over-year in W25-54. Fairly sure it's the lowest retention yet in the former demo, holding only 68% from Bold. The last time the show grew its demos when Bold went down was the week of June 23rd, a feat it hasn't accomplished since. Why is that date significant? Because it was the week before its first full week of repeats. It has been over 3 months now. I've seen enough to say with some certainty that those repeat weeks broke the pattern of same-day watching for a not insignificant number of its younger viewers.

This episode hit the trifecta of the classic Bill Bell-written Taylor Hayes. She: 1) Divulged information on another patient's treatment 2) Treated someone she has a personal relationship with & 3) flirted with Brooke's sloppy seconds. I've come around, I'm enjoying Budig in the role.

There's lots of hate for her short 1996 run on AW, but ratings-wise she was the most successful HW in the 90s. The show hit #6 12 times in the W18-49 demo during her tenure. It spent almost all of the 90s at #9, finishing #10 for its last week.

Bill's to-do list

Days helped for sure, but she was able to hold over half of their demo. Still the worst hold of all the soaps at the time, but the show lost a bigger portion in '97.

I don't know about the P&G side, but I'm pretty sure NBC wanted her to stay. Starting in Spring of '96, AW had its last stand of being relevant ratings-wise. Until the end of that year it was regularly beating or tying not just the other P&G shows, but often B&B too in W18-49. Though she left in late summer '96, the show continued to do well in '97 versus the 3 lower CBS shows (although not reaching its Q3 1996 numbers). 1998 is when its fate was sealed. The CBS 3 leapfrogged AW immediately in the demo and never looked back. Unfortunately, this coincided with Reilly delivering his bible for Passions. By the Summer it was tying or being beaten by PC (once even tying Sunset Beach). Even its last week the next year lost to PC in the demo. If Jill stayed and kept the show around GL/ATWT demo numbers, I wonder if NBC would have renewed the show. The likeliest scenario is that would have gotten another year in Sunset's timeslot(s) before getting cancelled, but who knows.

Thanks! It was a bit distracting, but I don't blame the show for experimenting with production techniques in their new space.

Good for Carter. The fact that the dance was so trivial was the point. It was refreshing that he saw the writing on the wall and peaced out maturely with his dignity intact. I don't blame him at all for being open to Daphne. This was probably the best work I've seen VSL do on the show.

It looks nice, but there's something off about the lighting maybe? The scenes at Forrester Creations look great but there's almost a delayed quality in the scenes set at Brooke's house & the restaurant. Maybe it's Stockholm Syndrome but I don't mind Daphne Rose since she returned. The actress is more confident in her performance. I hope this continues, as the show needs a non-crazy troublemaker.

The numbers don't really bear that out as Bold did relatively better than Y&R & BTG that past 2 weeks. Unless you think the non-Luna storylines are that much better than the stories on the other 2 shows. I do think it hurt the show, at least on Live + Same Day numbers. Since the first week of repeats aired, BTG hasn't had a demo increase independent of Bold. It has been almost 3 months of that now, leading me to speculate that a good chunk of the new audience fled - at least watching on the same day - and some of those viewers were replaced by traditional CBSD viewers. I don't think the reasoning behind the order number causing repeats makes sense. If the show was cancelled after its second order, there's no reason it has to end at a certain time. It could end on a Tuesday and CBS can slot TPIR or LMAD reruns or whatever. I'm not a viewer, but it was unfair of CBS to do that to a new soap.

I disagree that he was written out of character last year. He was always shown to be a compassionate people pleaser who forgives easily. Steffy for cheating on him, Li for letting his wife think he was dead for example. Yes, what Sheila did was worse, but it's not surprising that he softened towards her after her kidnapping/near death experience, then her saving his step-daughter. He did still keep her at arm's length. As for Finn getting yelled at by hypocrites, that's par for the course on this show. When those scenes happened, it felt to me that the writing was much more sympathetic to Finn rather than those blasting him. As much as I thought he was written too perfectly last year, at least he had some semblance of a POV, which hasn't been the case in 2025.

How was he thrown under the bus? If anything, they overprotected Finn's character. I'm sure the actor would have preferred if they allowed Finn to make a bad choice or two last year instead of just being a conductor to absorb drama for Steffy's reaction.

I don't know if it's coincidence or causation, but BTG hasn't increased its demos week to week independent of Bold since its first weekly preemption.

Too funny, thank you!

LMAO, I had no idea that was a plot point, I'll have to check that out. Even if it doesn't always lead to the best stories, I do like that Bill is fallible and that the show didn't make him into some genius antagonist.

First, thank you getting me to Google this great scene. Fun to see Brooke in the Stephanie role. Brooke's problem was that she perceived Maya to be deceiving Rick, so I don't get the comparison. The only characters I could realistically see having a problem with their child being gay in 2025 are Li because she's a control freak who probably planned out Finn's life during labor, and maybe Bill. But I think they'd both accept it quickly.

Forget about gay - if Deke gets the job wouldn't he be the first designer hired at FC who wasn't a Forrester or someone a Forrester on the canvas wants to sleep with?

I could be wrong, but if I had to wager I'd bet he is offered at least a 1 year renewal unless Kimmel goes scorched earth. I don't expect that to happen, as by all accounts both sides were professional during negotiations. Who knows if he agrees or not. Disney could sell ABC, but if they hold on to it I doubt they want to be perceived as fully capitulating to Sinclair & Nexstar. The financials for Kimmel aren't as dire as Colbert's show as both he and Fallon are far ahead of Colbert on digital views & monetization. ABC does have more leverage than usual during the 26-27 season, as it's airing the Super Bowl. Not to mention the mid-terms. Relations with the Hollywood community is another consideration. Kimmel has also been the face of the network, hosting the Oscars and other events.

That's very insightful. Beyond his looks, he did stick out as the only man with a brain in a town full of himbos. Yeah, seemed obvious that JER lost interest once PR was foisted on him. IMO, when most of the shows started copying Days in the mid-90s, they misread what its appeal was to younger viewers. They started doing over-the-top stunts & stories, when the real appeal was its consistent, erotically-charged Gothic vibe. JER gravitated towards sultry actors like RKK, Lisa Rinna, Mark Valley, Jason Brooks & Lauren Koslow who could facilitate those stories.