te.

On 10/31/2023 at 8:19 PM, DaytimeFan said:

Dame Joan must have passed on it because this project would have been ideal for her given she's friends with Donna Mills, Morgan Fairchild, and Linda Gray.

She definitively must've passed on Loni's part. 

3 hours ago, Khan said:

I still think Loni's a replacement for another (blonde) soap diva who turned down the role.

They likely wrote the script once they had secured the talent tbh. These movies aren't exactly hard to write.

I do agree Loni was an after-thought. I assume they must've been turned down by Dame Joan at least.

NBC Daytime is just falling apart at this point. Ouch.

I'd imagine that one advantage with DAYS' for actors is the amount of dark weeks since it allows them more time off to do other projects or just plain holidayin'. Considering the insane taping schedule when they do tape I'd think it's a trade-off essentially.

I want a Don and Marlena reunion now with a surprise pregnancy! Never Say Never!

07/27/83 - 13.8/25

08/03/83 - 9.2/17

08/10/83 - 8.9/16

08/17/83 - 10/18

08/24/83 - 9.6/17

It normally didn't even keep it's repeat lead-in of Fall Guy, which was usually around a 13-ish rating.

Is there any information available on Tribes in those Nielsen books? 

It actually looks like they used the model that stood in for Alexis in the print ad. 

6 minutes ago, Khan said:

"Who Shot Alexis?" would have been just the shot in the arm that DYNASTY needed at that point.  I mean, she finally - FINALLY! - got the revenge she had long sought against Blake.  What better time to have someone try and off the witch in her penthouse?  There were certainly plenty of suspects to go around, lol.

Well, they kind of had their "who shot Alexis" in season 4, only changed the word "shot" to "framed". 

3 hours ago, j swift said:

Scheduling was a variable that was blamed for the failures of Loving, The City, Generations, and Ryan's Hope.  It seems reasonable, but hasn't The View survived in that timeslot for decades?  I never know the east coast schedule and may have confused The View taking the timeslot vs just using The City's set.

With The City and Sunset Beach it's more the fact that they're so aggressively targeted towards Generation X (ie at the time 18-35 year olds), who just wouldn't be likely to be at home to watch television when they were on, hence they missed the boat entirely. Generations and Ryan's Hope weren't specifically target towards that group; who knows who Loving was targeted towards (and of course, The View is targeted towards stay-at-home moms, which fits the time slot like a glove). If there's one good thing to say about The City, it's that it had a very strong presentation about who their audience was; if they managed to convey that in the writing can be discussed.

(Incidentally, I'd argue that moving what was perceived as an old-fashioned soap like Love of Life to 4:00 PM was also a bizarre move as the hausfraus who've followed that likely would've been busy with afternoon activities)

I think the biggest issue with The City was that it was aired at 12:30, yet obviously aimed at the Gen X crowd. Same thing with Sunset Beach - even if the intended audience would've been interested, they wouldn't have been at the television to watch it.

On 11/7/2023 at 10:52 PM, Donna L. Bridges said:

Just curious, have any of you ever looked at this website to determine how accurate they are? 

http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/

I know the guys behind the website and they do what we all do - compile ratings from various known sources. They've never posted anything false.

In hindsight, it does seem like a bit of a waste to keep Another World behind DAYS especially those times when DAYS had ratings resurgences. Maybe not when General Hospital was murdering everything in the way in the time slot, but by the late 80s/early 90s it was odd that they didn't even seem to consider moving it until Passions came along.

1 hour ago, All My Shadows said:

Wow, North Shore! I loved it at the time and remember absolutely nothing about it.

Eh, I found North Shore rather dire, especially as it was meant to be the Melrose Place to The OC's 90210. Even Shannen coming on couldn't save it. Weirdly enough, Fox opted not to air the 21st episode which had a major cliffhanger (or maybe that was the reason).

9 minutes ago, kalbir said:

Also Y&R was killing it. Remember that in the Eastern time zone second half of Y&R was head-to-head w/ first half of Days.

Definitively. I do think loss of the Scrabble lead-in and Y&R probably did affect DAYS in the sense viewers just changed their habits rather quickly. Scrabble is a typical "leave it on the telly show" whose audience is largely casual (hence why the viewers didn't transfer into the morning slot), but probably made a lot of people keep on the telly when DAYS came on. I'm guessing those viewers just didn't bother even switching on to NBC after Scrabble moved.

25 minutes ago, Soapsuds said:

Days at 5.0? Yikes!!

I think it just shows that Scrabble at least must've provided DAYS with some casual audience overlap, because I don't see any other reason why it suddenly would've crashed like that in four or so weeks. The whole NBC line-up seems to be suffering - no wonder they got rid off Generations early.

Generations just plummeted into the low 2s fast despite having excellent coverage.

And yikes, DAYS just crashed with it - I know a lot of people have said the show was messy at this point but I think the previous Scrabble lead in must've helped.

Scrabble really didn't do too badly in the time slot. If Generations had been able to keep those figures we'd probably at least had it for a few more years, but it wasn't meant to be.

I don't know why they insisted that Peter Reckell should have an Irish accent. It's Amy Locane's-Southern-Accent bad.

I'm surprised that Generations had seemingly a lot of station coverage (for a while at least) in those best-rated weeks post. I just assumed it might've been off to a bad clearance start due to NBC being so spotty in that timeslot over the years.

And yikes. Ryan's Hope is now just looking pitiful.

6 hours ago, Khan said:

Good question.  I don't know what the soap press thought, but I would say that the first four (or more) months of SB were worse.  From what I've seen of TEXAS, its' beginnings weren't great, but it had "good bones," to use HGTV lingo.  It just needed better writing. 

I always got the impression that Texas's biggest issue was that it was so closely tied into Another World which made it hard to follow for any new viewers interested in checking a new soap out. They'd probably been better off just to start afresh once it was all moved over to Texas, but I guess that's the issue with spin-offs.

8 hours ago, Khan said:

Could someone who'd know explain Brian Emerson's backstory to me?  Reading these latest synopses, I get the impression that Stephanie gave birth to him in Oklahoma City.  Yet, whenever I've seen the character, he speaks with a thick "Noo Yawk" accent.  Was Brian adopted out of Oklahoma and raised in NY?

Could it be that one of the more notable actors who played him had a New York accent and then the character just kind of got given it? With the show filming in New York I'd assume the actors might've have a natural New York accent.

Honestly, I'm not sure why they thought a youth-oriented program would do well on Saturday at 10PM? 

On 10/16/2023 at 12:39 PM, Paul Raven said:

I can't see 2 rival networks and 2 different production companies working together to arrange a crossover.

Had anything like that ever happened before or since?

Just Enquirer hype I think.

Yeah, I agree - I don't think it was ever on the cards. I could've seen Lorimar/CBS talking about crossing over Dallas / Falcon Crest because of the timeslot and logistics would work out for both parties.

The closest I can think of is that scrapped X-Files / Picket Fences cross-over where you can see remenants of it in the scripts, but was nixed at the last minute by CBS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_Museum

I also think you can't compare the UK/Europe market to the US market when it comes to cross-overs. Smaller scales to work with plus not the same type of competition mentality where you can't benefit the other party in any way.

RIP ole' Moon Eyes, as Pansy Faye called her.