What the numbers DON'T say about OLTL is more interesting than what they do. In the past weeks, the stories ARE supposedly moving, but the ratings aren't reflecting that at all They've've had a 'DID resolution,' getting close to Spenser's comeuppance, the stalker reveal, Paige's son reveal, and this week the payoff to the boxing -- these are months-long arcs that should be getting some type of ratings spike, but the ratings are FLAT.

Instead, what one reads on non ABC boards are long term loyal viewers fed up with the cuts, Frons' insults, and the drawn-out stories focusing on forced characters moving over to CBS soaps or DOOL. Valentini, Higley and crew SHOULD be very afraid.

I agree they should be very afraid and I laugh at the so called shake ups to resolve this. John, Antonio, Chris and Spencer in lead stories. Antonio, Claudia, Jess and Tess round two. Todd and Blair reunite and deal with Marty's rape -- again. First I want to know what is new and fresh about any of this. Nothing is new, nothing is creative and it all involves the very things that I have grown to hate about the show.

What the numbers DON'T say about OLTL is more interesting than what they do. In the past weeks, the stories ARE supposedly moving, but the ratings aren't reflecting that at all They've've had a 'DID resolution,' getting close to Spenser's comeuppance, the stalker reveal, Paige's son reveal, and this week the payoff to the boxing -- these are months-long arcs that should be getting some type of ratings spike, but the ratings are FLAT.

Instead, what one reads on non ABC boards are long term loyal viewers fed up with the cuts, Frons' insults, and the drawn-out stories focusing on forced characters moving over to CBS soaps or DOOL. Valentini, Higley and crew SHOULD be very afraid.

Their arrogance is overwhelming. What would it take to have enough respect for fans to keep Kevin and Kelly? It's arrogance and disrespect on their part. You can't fix stupid and you can't tolerate arrogance, the two traits together are unbearable. Valentini, Frons and Higley all three have that deadly combination of arrogance and ignorance. OLTL and all of ABCD is in real trouble.

As I sit here and read the comments esp. the ones about ATWT, I see why the soaps are in trouble. Why do we as fans now think that the show has got to be action packed all the time.

I guess I come from a different generation of soap watchers. But I can remember when one of my soaps was only 30 minutes long and 15 minutes of it was spent one day with 2 of the actresses sitting at the kitchen table discussing their lives. They even sat there and discussed the fact that one of their children was home frm school that day sick. It was good life drama, and got huge ratings.

They do have to be action packed.

Times have changed. Today's fans are on the go and have attention spans of gnats.

It's gotta be drama, drama, drama. And the everyday boring stuff has to go. It's nice to see every now and then but it's boring and won't bring in the viewers.

They do have to be action packed.

Times have changed. Today's fans are on the go and have attention spans of gnats.

It's gotta be drama, drama, drama. And the everyday boring stuff has to go. It's nice to see every now and then but it's boring and won't bring in the viewers.

Well I am sorry but soaps might as well go off the air now. None of them have enough ratings to do the big adventure action packed stories all the time anymore. And what I mean by that is even when the ratings are up they aren't high enough to have advertisers pouring big money into them. Location shoots and action stories usually take more money to make them look realistic. All the big action adventure, action packed episodes that so many of the fans want just can't be done on a daily basis for 52 weeks of the year.

Either the soaps need to go to a once a week schedule like the primetime shows or just go off all together. They just can't do it anymore and maintain the vets that people want, the good writers that people want, and all that. Either fans are going to have to compromise or the shows go one.

KR is right to an extent. Soaps have to move story constantly nowadays because that is what fans want. Action packed every day won't work but when one story closes, another one should be opening. I would say 3 weeks out of a month have to have things happening. You can get by with a week of setup and nothing big but a few weeks straight gets you nowhere. Again, there doesn't need to big event but just something that move story and makes fans watch. Not everyone is like all of us-they don't watch every scene or like the small moments. The general fan wants things to happen and needs something to watch that entertains, puts them on the edge of their seat, and grips them and forced them to pay attention. Take Days for instance last week. Good shows all week but very little in stoty movement other then Steve/Kayla actually going somewhere and Friday's episode that featured movement on the Patrick/Hope/Bo front and a big moment for Billie. One or two episodes a week of movement does nothing. Days this week had major movement in the Bope and J&J stories Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week had J&J say goodbye, the Claire reveal, and now will have a huge Carrie/Austin twist tomarrow. Now that will bring viewers in. I am happy Hogan wants to tell fast-paced stories because that is daytime and primetime nowadays. That is not to say character interactions and such needs to be eliminated but it should not take up the scope of a whole week or most of one.

Y&R had upped the pace but has not really sacrificed it's mark as being a character-driven show. Some of the stories aren't good but the pace helps and people can tolerate even bad stories if they don't get dragged out for months and months and that is what weeks of nothing happening get you. It will help Days tremendously wants Hogan starts and the pace improved. The pace has been like that since June on Days but the past two weeks it stalled a little bit after Will got kidnapped. Starting with last Friday's show, that pace is back and the show is really making a huge push with payoffs and huge moments. They deserve to be rewarded for this week and for future weeks if a pace like this continues, which it no doubt will under Hogan.

KR is right to an extent. Soaps have to move story constantly nowadays because that is what fans want. Action packed every day won't work but when one story closes, another one should be opening. I would say 3 weeks out of a month have to have things happening. You can get by with a week of setup and nothing big but a few weeks straight gets you nowhere. Again, there doesn't need to big event but just something that move story and makes fans watch. Not everyone is like all of us-they don't watch every scene or like the small moments. The general fan wants things to happen and needs something to watch that entertains, puts them on the edge of their seat, and grips them and forced them to pay attention. Take Days for instance last week. Good shows all week but very little in stoty movement other then Steve/Kayla actually going somewhere and Friday's episode that featured movement on the Patrick/Hope/Bo front and a big moment for Billie. One or two episodes a week of movement does nothing. Days this week had major movement in the Bope and J&J stories Monday and Tuesday and the rest of the week had J&J say goodbye, the Claire reveal, and now will have a huge Carrie/Austin twist tomarrow. Now that will bring viewers in. I am happy Hogan wants to tell fast-paced stories because that is daytime and primetime nowadays. That is not to say character interactions and such needs to be eliminated but it should not take up the scope of a whole week or most of one.

Y&R had upped the pace but has not really sacrificed it's mark as being a character-driven show. Some of the stories aren't good but the pace helps and people can tolerate even bad stories if they don't get dragged out for months and months and that is what weeks of nothing happening get you. It will help Days tremendously wants Hogan starts and the pace improved. The pace has been like that since June on Days but the past two weeks it stalled a little bit after Will got kidnapped. Starting with last Friday's show, that pace is back and the show is really making a huge push with payoffs and huge moments. They deserve to be rewarded for this week and for future weeks if a pace like this continues, which it no doubt will under Hogan.

As I said in the post before, I just don't think on the budgets that the soaps have now that they can do that 5 days a week. Something will give somewhere. Either the ratings will drop more or soaps will disappear all together. The writers that can do that on a daily basis are not capable of doing that even for 3 weeks out of the month not with the smaller casts that we have today. Even Hogan as good as he was couldn't do that at ATWT. There were even boring times under him.

As I said in the post before, I just don't think on the budgets that the soaps have now that they can do that 5 days a week. Something will give somewhere. Either the ratings will drop more or soaps will disappear all together. The writers that can do that on a daily basis are not capable of doing that even for 3 weeks out of the month not with the smaller casts that we have today. Even Hogan as good as he was couldn't do that at ATWT. There were even boring times under him.

I agree. Hogan had a lot of boring times as well. And the pacing of ATWT became slow towards his end of his run on ATWT. The Cabot mess was one example. It seemed like that story went on forever with no end.

I don't think it has to be ALL action all the time - but there has to be something FRESH or likeable other than the pretty face or body onscreen. The stunts backfire when there is no relationship behind them. No one wants an entire soap episode about two friends sitting and chatting over coffee -- but what does it say about a soaps' priorities when the last wedding was rushed because the couple had little story, stalled for a year, and then the wedding was upstaged DURING THE CEREMONY not by some obstacle to the couple at hand but by another plot altogether, and then the guest of honor at the reception was a tornado. The Paige reveal was flat because we had little belief a son would be important to Spenser, and certainly didn't seem important to Paige. The plane crash was a joke because John barely knew Todd existed before OR afterwards.

For OLTL, some of the more sucessful items around the net are the BO/Rex partnership, the jaded old cop and the once bad now trying to be good young man - supplying some humor. One of the show's worst hits is losing the funny, popular Tuc Watkins.

Yeah. Gotta be drama or action or something new/fresh/exciting. Fans don't tune in for the little everyday scenes anymore.

I'm surprised that the AMC and the OL numbers are hanging in at 2.3 and 2.4. I caught part of the party and it was dreadful I'd thought that AMC would have been more in the 2.1 range. I expected the same of OLTL. OLTL is unwatchable save the random scene here and there.

I caught a bit of YR on soapnet where Dru (I believe that's her name) was jailed for something. She was mesmerizing. It struck me that that kind of acting is what I want and what OLTL/ABC refuses to provide any longer. I also understood why HT and DG will be so missed they truly gave something special to OLTL.

cal3, I have thought about that and have thought about GL's ratings quite a bit lately. I think every one of the shows has a built-in audience who watches out of habit to some extent. They watch through everything and are completely faithful to the show. I think that is the built-in audience or the stable audience. GL seems to keep it's pretty consistent and they usually don't fall beyond a certain number anymore. Y&R has that certain audience built in too and what they have going for them is that their faithful audience is bigger than anyone elses.

I used to be part of that stable audience for 3 different shows until 2006, and I know that many others did too. For some people it takes them longer to give up than others, but eventually even those people will quit. My Mom did nothing but complain about AMC this whole year, but she would never quit watching. Everyday at 12:00 even when she couldn't use the remote anymore she wanted the TV on ABC. As I said some of these do get mad and leave, but it takes a lot to get to some of them.

We were just discussing about the shows having to stay action packed to keep viewers these days. Thankfully there are those viewers that don't think so and are even faithful during the slow times or what some see as boring. They are the ones that keep that 2.3 or whatever the stable rating is.

There are other viewers who come in and out from time to time, and they help get the surges these days. They are either viewers who bounce from one show to the next. Or they watch from time to time and then when things get interesting again they tune in for the pay off. Or they are fans of a couple or a specific actor and will tune in when the story is about their favorite.

All of the viewers are important these days. What is hurting the shows so much I believe is that for the last few years TPTB have catered toward those ratings surges - pulling in those viewers to get those ratings surges. And every show is guilty of it, but ABC has really been guilty of it and got a lot of flack for it.

What the shows don't realize is that while catering to those viewers they have eroded or angered a lot of their base fans. Those base fans are what is maintaining ABC's ratings where they are now. As they anger more of them then the shows could really be hurting. And if things don't change some it will probably happen. IT usually takes quite a bit of time for base fans to leave. It did me with AMC esp. It took a good 2 years that I was angry at the show before I gave up. OLTL was a little quicker. And Days was a lot quicker, but some other factors contributed there.

As I said the day to day fans take alot more. For the day to day fan we don't have to have things action packed all the time, but we do need certain things. The main thing that we need is for the stories whether good or bad to be about people we care about. With OLTL if the stories had been about the "legacy" characters, I would have never quit. Some of Dena's stories were bad, but they were not that bad. The problem with her stories was not even that they went on for too long, but that they were about characters we were not invested in. And the new characters were not fleshed out enough to make us care about them. AMC is becoming guilty of the same thing. If they continue this then those everyday fans will quit, and the ratings will go down more. I think that has what has kept GL sort of consistent is that the fans who are watching daily are at least seeing stories about characters who have been with the show for years, and they care about them. It helps too that the performers are talented too.

Anyway it is just a theory and just my opinion. You can take it for what it's worth.

And as to the action packed thing or the drama drama drama, I find it weird that people keep talking about wanting the old days back or the days of the 80's. Especially all the time it is said that Days is not as good as it was in the 80's. I watched all of the 80's and 90's, and even though there were a lot of action adventure stories and stuff - it was not action packed all the time and drama drama drama everyday. There were good stories and there were bad stories and there were mediocre stories. I think people remember the good and forget the rest. Anyway I say that to say that even if those days were brought back the fans wouldn't accept it today then. Even the great glory days of Gloria Monty on GH wouldn't survive today's fans.

I don't think soaps have to be action packed but the pacing is all wrong. ATWT just ended the slasher story and we could all see how boring it was going to be. All the other stories (and there aren't that many) have been going in circles for months so now there's no slasher, we're stuck with those same stories that are going nowhere. It looks like ATWT is planning another "stunt" starting next week which will probably be good, but the long-term stories need to be better. When one story ends, another story should be reaching a climax. I'm not talking about action adventure necessarily, but something should be going on to hold the fans interest. We can't be expected to watch five hours a week when the stories are going nowhere and the dialogue seems repetitive.

I think another reason why the soaps are suffering is because they are so far behind the times. ATWT has done a great job with Luke coming out story, but will he get a lover now like every other soap teen gets in the first week they air? Probably not. There's little diversity (everyone is white and rich and straight) and little going on other than stupid love triangles which are told with no original angles.

TPTB are so focused on always casting newbies or focusing the shows around non-core characters that they forget what the show is supposed to be about in the first place.

Steve, I agree with most of what you say about the day to day fans and their loyalty. Still OLTL's past two years has been an exercise in sheer frustration. We've had a similar conversation about the base fans here during the Santi reign of terror. It seemed then like the base fractured moving from a 2.7 (the then series low) down to a 2.4 and it's essentially never completely recovered from that. At best it seems those who made the difference between the 2.3 (now series low) and the 2.7 peak back and leave again. My question is are we seeing another fracture and how many more fractures can the show take before it's simply too many pieces to try and put back together. I know I'd certainly be considered one of the loyal. As much as I complain I never missed an episode, until recently. When the news of DG's firing came, that was it. I said they'd gone too far and while I haven't quit completely I don't make the show a priority and I plan on turning it off when Tom and Gauthier exit not so much for K/K but because they were the last things I found of any remaining interest.

The problem isn't action, I for one would love those small scenes. I do tune in and watch for them. I want to see Viki and her kids in the kitchen talking and having meals together. I want family relationships depicted. I want character driven stories. I do not want plot points. Action isn't drama to me. For me one of the biggest dramatic moments in the past few years was Kevin learning his child was dead and Ace abandoned (so he was told). That is they type of thing I live for. In contrast the plane crash and the car accident were boring and quite missable moments. I don't care about Todd or John nor do I care about John's father's murder. All that action packed drama and it went by pretty much on ff for me.

Instead of action what they need is good stories driven by character and adequately paced. If the story is well paced there are new points of interest at regular intervals to keep things moving and entertaining.

ITA that TPTB are too obssessed with newbies. I still remember how stupid it was of OLTL to have the Rappaports take over. You couldn't get away from Lindsay, or Sam, or Will (how I hated Will)!!! It's like Dena and her hard-on for Spencer, Paige, and Michael. On all the time and not popular with fans. Lindsay did become a favorite, but I think that was because of Catherine Hickland and her performance once she got out of Sam and Will's orbit.

DAYS, with the exception of Langan's teen craze, hasn't been big on newbies for a long time. They introduced the Walkers, but Taylor was soon gone, and Nicole and Brandon floated around in between big stories. Jan's introduction and her return didn't last long. The Lockhearts came, and Mimi was the only one to stay and get some fans. Bonnie weaves in and out, and Patrick is so undefined, when he's on, many just don't care. If one soap did need new blood to shake things up and cut out all this near-incest, it's DAYS. I hope the ratings will stay steady or increase once October and Hogan's stuff starts kicking.

New blood is essential to shows and OLTL is is there, the problem at OLTL with its newbie phase is the characters don't work. What the show needed was one or two males in the Marcie, Nat, Jess age group. Nash and Hugh were good stabbs but Nash has been all but ruined at this point and Hugh is dead. The show then needed at least one new female in the 30's considering they have Todd, John, Antonio and Kevin. The other area the show is weak in is the child/teens. All Todd's kids and all Kevin's dead kids is just a losing proposition. Big mistakes were made with the soarsing and casting of River and Duke and even Sara.

Also OLTL doesn't get how to use a newbie. Spencer as evil incarnate should be driving Todd and Kevin's stories with Blair and Kelly but he shouldn't be the focus. The focus should be Kevin and Todd. Dead Tom shouldn't exist as anything beyond a footnote in the Spencer stuff. Declaring a new character a long lost family member doesn't make them family or loved and at this point with Asa, Clint, Dorian and Viki the plot is over used and trite. There are also just too many of them.

All ABC soaps are pretty bad right now, but OLTL is not even recognizable anymore. Hey Lskreet, did you get tired of reading about how Crave, Tangeline, or whoever made the ratings of OLTL improve from stinks to just smells bad? LOL..

Yes I did and that's one of the main reasons I decided to post the numbers here.