bongobong

I haven't seen Melchior in the role, but it would be astounding if she's worse than Linn. Her rivalry with Stephanie was sidelined IMO because Linn was one of the few actors who didn't have chemistry with, nor raise her game, when paired with Susan Flannery. To be fair, she did show some signs of life in scenes opposite Darlene Connelly, but way too little too late. It feels like Bell finally woke up after the Thorne switchover and sidelined the Kristin character with Mick to 1 or 2 appearances a week. As a result, the show improved by leaps and bounds after she was inexplicably at the center of the show for most of 1989. Margo is so much more enjoyable when not tied to that albatross. Even Clarke is watchable with less Kristin interaction. She can't exit stage left soon enough. As for the new Thorne, I agree that Norcross feels like a Forrester a lot more than Thrachta, even if the latter is a better actor.

Thank you for this tip! I was looking to buy that shirt Finn wore this week.

You're right, W25-54 is the demo buyers use for CBS daytime.

Not counting Memorial Day helped Y&R and hurt Bold. Good for the BTG team for getting their first daily win on Thursday.

Finally got to the Thorne switchover in 1989. OG Thorne's drunk acting in his last episode was pretty awful. For a second I wondered if the performance was so bad Bill Bell felt he had no choice but to recast ASAP....until I remembered he was fine with letting Terri Ann Lynn vacantly shriek her lines for 2 1/2 years with no problem. Crazy that if SON was around in 1989 there might be a debate if Ron Moss was the 2nd best Forrester actor, rather than being the worst actor in daytime. Lauren Koslow finally had some decent material in August/September. Seeing Margo briefly interact with Stephanie & Caroline made the actress come alive. It seemed when the show started, she was there to mix it up with the power players, instead of being stuck on the B team with Kristin, Clarke & Mick (was the casting notice for this part a Kale Brown-type doing a Christopher Walken impression?). Anyway, the way Bill Bell wrote for her makes one appreciate James E. Reilly. Bobbie Eakes was a very pleasant surprise. I haven't had too much exposure to the character before. She was confident and watchable from day 1. I guess Rocco and Nick fell in love and left LA together offscreen.

Respectfully, no. They aren't trying to distract from anything, the losses were cut by a third and the app is experiencing growth. NBCU isn't seen as a risky investment by media buyers.

I haven't seen it yet, but Day of the Jackal is the ONLY scripted Peacock show I've heard people talk about in real life. Anecdotal, but from a boomer relative, millennial friend & gen z co-worker. There's value there in being the first big buzz show to draw people to the platform. Bel Air is the only other show I noticed that got some organic buzz (from non-tv critics) online a few years ago.

Seems right to me. It's about retaining the signups from when the show migrated to Peacock. After 3 years, paid promotion seems like waste of money at this point.

Seems like a missed opportunity for BTG (and GH to a lessor extent because it's been on for 60 years....). Sure, it's likely the holiday numbers will be lower, but they forfeit the chance for regular viewers to introduce the show to their 9-5 relatives or friends who might like it and set their DVR or stream it afterwards.

If episodes are 40 minutes(?), that averages 436,742 viewers per episode for season 59 & 652,173 for season 60.

Her title is: Director of Fighting with Daphne Rose & Expository Recapping with Brooke

CBS has more popular primetime shows compared to ABC & NBC. Plus 2 slots reserved for whatever Taylor Sheridan is newly streaming & toddlers/stoners watching Spongebob.

Good point. In addition to being a great character in her own right, she had chemistry with almost everyone on the show. A Jake/Paulina/Iris triangle would have been a lot of fun. If 1994 AW aired in 2025, I doubt Iris would have even considered to be on the chomping block. All the shows now are noticeably less youth obsessed compared to the 90s.

Interesting, I didn't know the origins of their "friendship." Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against Linda Dano or Felicia, but maybe the show would have been better off if they killed off Felicia instead of Quinn and built around her. Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't OLTL & ATWT pretty white at that time? Of all the stuff they threw at walls during that time to see what stuck, appealing to Black viewers seemed like a no-brainer. Especially since NBC had success at that time in Primetime with The Cosby Show & 227. Even in the mornings with Bryant Gumbel on Today. Of course, didn't have to be an either/or. I didn't mean to convey that Donna's isolation was the reason. Rachel, Felicia & Donna were all rich, 50ish brunettes whose characters started bleeding together by that point. Granted, mostly due to the bad writing of the writers she hired. Of the 3, getting rid of Donna would have been by far the easiest as VW had the most longevity/caused the biggest uproar; and Dano was the face of the show to the industry (and her favorite of the bunch). Thanks for the info of the alcoholism story. It was right before I started watching so I've only seen the clips of the intervention. Don't remember Cass & Donna at all. Was it last year of the show before he got with Lila? I was mostly checked out at that point.

Hilarious that Steffy just barges into Brooke's house to see Hope without knocking. Ridge bought it, so I guess she feels she's entitled to.

This would be a weird comment to make about the face of the show if it wasn't damn accurate. In the 90s she was mostly confined to her own orbit with her daughters and Cass, aside from a few stories. Her relationship with Rachel was pretty weird too. A case of tell not show. They seemed to be there for each other at big moments (weddings, funerals, etc.) and proclaim how close they were, but rarely interacted outside of those. I only remember one storyline they had together - the Lucas lookalike - but that was more about their significant others' animosity if I'm remembering correctly. In hindsight, it was pretty strange how little Rachel, Felicia & Donna - all around the same age give or take - had to do with each other for the last decade. The actresses were all top-10 in longevity for the entire show and made it to the finish line, but never meaningfully mixed it up at the end. Even Donna dating Rachel's son didn't lead to many interactions between those 2. I can understand JFP's reasoning for getting rid of Donna, even if I didn't agree with it (she was my favorite of the 3).

Soccer ratings are rising in the US. CBS/Paramount+ needs to provide a bunch of sports offerings to keep young men tuned in until its most important asset, the NFL, returns in September.

CBS literally renewed B&B a month ago for 3 years and Y&R for 4 the year before. Doesn't look like they're scheming to get rid of their soaps. Obviously Y&R & B&B were dinged a bit for being preempted in almost 25% of the US for 2 days. As for BTG, isn't it strategically smart to have strong episodes (I'll take your word for it) bracketing preemptions? If Monday was ho-hum, wouldn't turning back in on Thursday be less top of mind for the less fanatic viewers?

Thanks for posting this, fascinating read. It's clear how ambivalent Wyndham is about Justine. IMO, it reads like she agrees that the end of the storyline was bad, but reading between the lines I think she thought she was doing good work for the meat of it....which was not the case. As bad as the writing for most of that story was, it was truly made worse by her embarrassing performance. After the story concluded she kept falling back into Justine ticks, when she wasn't phoning he scenes in. Not to play Freud, but was it to tr*ll her critics?

I liked that Steffy told Liam that he should tell Hope about his tumor. As acrimonious as Steffy & Hope are to each other, I'm glad they don't use their kids as pawns.

Damn, Darlene is great as a menacing Sally. Can't wait for her to cross paths with Stephanie. LMAO, even the editor of Stud Magazine can't resist Caroline. Oh, the 80s.

It's overlooked that Bold can still see spikes with younger viewers because they have long-running young characters. Steffy, Hope & Liam (granted, he's been sidelined for 18 months or so) have been power players on the show for 15-ish years, and they are all 40 or younger. Looking at Y&R and GH's end of year episode counts, you get a bunch of 50+ characters in the top 5 with rando under 40s fluctuating year to year.

Another week of no flow between the CBS soaps in the demos.

I'm a moderate voter. I voted for Bonnie Crombie's Ontario Liberal party a few months ago. Pollievre is nothing like Trump. For American readers, every Canadian conservative politician since 2016 has been compared to Trump. Before that, Bush.

Agree to disagree here. Outside of his scenes with Stephanie, I find Clarke to be nails on a chalkboard. Hoping this changes when he interacts with Sally. I liked Katie & Rocco a lot at the start of the show. She was green but was a sweet, realistic character with some smarts, if not naive. Rocco was a ton of fun and very unique for this show. But once he went to FC, he became very low-energy and the (scab?) writers dropped the ball on what made him interesting: a good guy with big dreams willing to work for it. TBF, there are bits of that, like observing Eric & Ridge work but it just feels like scraps. Whereas is the first year I'd argue he was 1 of the 4 anchors of the show (Brooke, Stephanie & Caroline being the others). 100% agree on the Stephen story. Aside from some nice moments from Carrie Mitchum, it made the Logan girls seem borderline psychotic in how they treated their mother. IMO, the Beth character seemed to falter when they recast the part. I don't blame the actress at all though, she was quite good. Rather, the show made here too aggressively into a blue collar caricature. I guess to differentiate her from Stephanie, but from that point it was obvious she was never a true contender for Eric. Even look at her opening credit shots - the clunky car smile, holding groceries, frumpier clothes, etc.