watson71

The biggest blunder AW ever committed was in Spring 1986 when someone approved that the character of Sally Frame should die. Granted Taylor Miller was not the best Sally, TPTB could have had Sally leave town for awhile and then come back as a recast. The “popular” Sally Mary Page Keller had some success in Hollywood in the late 80s, but AW probably could have coaxed her back to the show in the 90s. A lot of the stories given to the character of Vicky that dominated the show in the 90s could have been given to the character of Sally. Also, killing Sally guaranteed that her mother, Alice, was not needed on the show- eliminating the important Matthews/Frame connection.

I agree that AW should have kept Quinn around. Thomasina, Carter, and Grant Jr could have returned to the show at some point. Also, a Quinn/Marshall Kramer/Felicia triangle would have been more interesting than the Felicia/John/Sharlene triangle we saw. There was plenty to do with the character of Quinn, the show just chose not to do it.

The return of Jacqueline Courtney to AW happened on the 20th Anniversary episode on May 4, 1984.

Surprised that AW didn’t get a more of a bump during February sweeps. The Cory jet had crashed over the Canadian tundra, and Mac Cory was presumed dead only to show up alive in the Friday cliffhanger on February 10th. This episode is when Sally met Catlin as well.

The week of 12/5/83, AW passes Capitol for the first time in the ratings. This was the aftermath of Jennifer Thatcher getting killed in a car crash and the revelation that Kevin Thatcher is Sally Frame’s son. Carl Hutchins will arrive in Bay City for the first time during Christmas week.

During this time, AW has gotten rid of Paul Rauch as EP and replaced him with GL’s Allen Potter. He will stay at AW until the end of 1984. While he never moved AW out of 8-9 place in the ratings, he did produce a much better AW than what we have previously seen the past few years from Rauch. Potter was AW’s first producer when the show premiered in 1964.

Go to the 11 minute mark- Stephen discusses how Paul Rauch hired him to play Cass and his screen test with the brilliant Nancy Frangione. He says that Nancy was a cheerleader for him when he started on AW.

RIP 🙏🏼 She was a great actress and added so much to AW every time she visited Bay City. Nancy was yet another overlooked AW actress at Emmy time. She certainly at least deserved an Emmy nomination. Linda Dano and Stephen Schnetzer discussed Nancy on her podcast. I’m just sorry that they never got her on that podcast or any other podcast/interview since she was an important part of AW history.

Thanks so much- I knew the shows ended on 12/31/82. I was wondering how long NBC gave both to wrap up from the cancellation announcement to the last show aired. Hit Man and Just Men did not last long on the schedule, but Betty White did win an Emmy for game show host for Just Men. Also, if NBC had given AW, not Sunset Beach, the 6 month extension in 1999, AW, Somerset, and Texas all would have aired their last episodes on 12/31.

Does anyone know the exact date when NBC canceled Texas and The Doctors? Their new daytime lineup debuted the first week in January 1983.

The week of October 18th, AW had another big event in Wyoming after San Diego in March and the Bel Aire Towers collapse in July. In Wyoming, Buzz had kidnapped Blaine, and Sandy had to rescue her. At this point, P&G was still spending lots of money on AW, but the viewers just weren’t there.

The week of July 12 was when AW had the elaborate cave in at the Bel Aire Tower construction site that trapped Rachel and Steve. A slight increase but no real growth for the show. I wish we could see these episodes on YouTube. So far they have not popped up there.

The week of 3/15, AW featured the location sequence in San Diego with Mitch trying to kidnap Matthew and take him to Mexico. AW improved from a 4.4/16 to a 5/18. The next week it dropped back to a 4.5/16.

What was the date of the GL episode in August 1981 where Nola confesses to Kelly that she lied about the baby?

Lucy Johnson was the VP of NBC Daytime who revamped the schedule in January 1983.

Every time I saw Ken Jordan on the screen all I thought of was David Thatcher 🤣

Hindsight is definitely 20/20. NBC and the production companies were definitely spending money on their soaps. But the ratings were not helped by ABC airing the Olympics. On a side note, here is an interesting piece of trivia- on the premier episode of Santa Barbara at the 18:00 mark, the reporter is played by Margaret Impert. She was the actress who played Rachel on AW briefly between Robin Strasser and Victoria Wyndham.

Both DAYS and AW featured remotes the week SANTA BARBARA premiered. Bo and Hope in New Orleans and AW featured a remote that was filmed at Coney Island where Cecile was kidnapped as she entered the tunnel of love. This would be the end of Nancy Frangione’s contract appearances as Cecile. She would return in late October 1984 to wrap up the storyline and would make several more guest appearances in 1986, 1989, 1993, and 1995-96.

As we get more ratings posted, would this be the last time that AW would score a higher rating than DAYS?

AW stayed on the air 19 years with not so good ratings. The quality of the show was not reflected in the ratings. P&G and NBC allowed Paul Rauch to stay as EP into the Spring of 1983. They should have gotten rid of him long before that. Allen Potter cleaned up the show in record time and there was a jump in the ratings, but not enough to move it out of the middle of the daytime ratings. From Harding Lemay’s brief return as headwriter to when Mac Cory died, AW was excellent, but again the ratings did not move. The show was relatively stable at this time with Michael Laibson as EP for 6 years and Donna Swajeski and Peggy Sloane as headwriters. Again, no movement upwards in the ratings. NBC still supported the show at this point, giving AW not DAYS a primetime airing before the Daytime Emmys in 1992. In 1993, NBC canceled Santa Barbara and let AW continue, despite SB winning 3 Emmys as best show. I think that NBC started losing faith in AW in 1995, after JFPs stint with her focus on the hospital and police station failed to move the ratings. Once NBC executive Charlotte Savitz was named EP in 1996, she dismantled AW piece by piece. She shouldn’t have been able to stay until November 1998. By the time Chris Goutman arrived, the damage was done. He could not fix in 6 months all the damage Savitz caused. Goutman’s stint as EP was practice at AW to send him to ATWT. His first years there were successful, but we know how that ended as well…

At this point in the ratings, AW was six months into the 90 minute episodes. The Doctors ratings were almost identical to AW’s ratings. Did it ever occur to anyone at NBC to just expand The Doctors to an hour rather than take the risk with Texas in 1980?

The ratings for GL are the first few weeks when Beverlee McKinsey joined the show as Alexandra Spaulding.

November 25, 1983 was the Friday after Thanksgiving, so a football preemption was most likely what happened.

Thanks so much for the info- surprised that DAYS and AW dropped the week of August 1st. Interesting that AW was .2 points from DAYS rating the week of July 25th. We will have to see if this is the closest AW was to being NBCs top rated soap again.