ALL: Pivotal Years for Soaps

[SteveFrame]

That is easy - Gloria Monty at General Hospital. It changed the whole face of daytime as it was known at the time. She created a youth craze that was different, and people flocked to it.

The collapse for both NBC and CBS came because instead of trying to do something different they tried to be just like GH, and it didn't work.

All the other soaps except for Y&R hurt themselves severely. Days got some popularity but they never rose back to even the high point in the ratings that they had in the 70's. Only Y&R sought to be different and they are the ones that rose to the top.

Even GH's formula got old even for them, and Y&R rose over them because GH's newness and uniqueness wore off because suddenly every show was just like them.

[SteveFrame]

It was monumental but not an important date as to what this thread is about.

[SteveFrame]

Aaron Spelling was a wonderful producer but I felt he did more for primetime than he did for daytime.

[Mason]

1965 (I think) - Our Private World spins off of ATWT, and becomes first (and so far only) primetime show to spin-off of a daytime soap.

[JoelMTL]

1989. GENERATIONS debuts on NBC, half the cast is comprised of African-American actors. Within a year, most of the other shows started featuring more black characters, in particular The Young And The Restless who was the shows' direct timeslot competitor.

[Jude]

Y&R was the first soap broadcast in color? I really don’t think that’s true. I believe the NBC soaps were the first in the mid-‘60s. OLTL and particularly AMC were the first soaps that drew young viewers on a large scale. Y&R did, however, set the standard for production values on Daytime TV. They had the best lighting and sets.

[David V]

In 1980 it was a combination of the following factors:

1.Days of Our Lives, that year, was apparently really bad. As bad as Langan, Higley and Reilly's second tenure were, what happened on Days in 1980 was equally damaging to the show. A number of longtime performers were let go and very few (if any) of the new characters created had any staying power at all.

2.The creation of AW spin-off Texas, which starred Beverlee McKinsey. McKinsey's move from AW to Texas caused AW's ratings to drop. Contrary to popular belief, AW's switch to 90 minutes in 1979 didn't cause the big ratings collapse- since AW's ratings were steady declining anyway, but was still NBC's highest-rated soap which it remained for most of the 90-minute run. After then, AW lost its position as NBC's highest-rated soap and never regained that.

3.The Doctors was moved into a new timeslot, effectively sealing its fate.

4.The fact that Days was in a bad state caused its ratings to drop first, and it soon affected the other NBC soaps. If you compare the 1979-80 and 1980-81 seasonal ratings (which can be viewed on this forum) you'll notice the big drop. However, both Days and AW made something of a miraculous recovery by 1984, even if nowhere near the levels they attained before 1980.

5.It also goes to show how the ratings and quality of one soap, can easily affect the ratings of all others around it. The success of AMC and GH in the late 70s had a knock-on effect on OLTL and Ryan's Hope, whilst B&B must be extremely grateful for being positioned between Y&R and ATWT. Until the early 90s, AW's ratings were easily affected by those of Days because of scheduling- and when Days' ratings surged suring 1983-84, it benefitted AW. When Days were in retreat by the early 90s, it also pulled AW's numbers down with it

[billyjill]

I think just one of the (14?) new characters really survived, and that was Gloria Loring's Liz Chandler.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

2002 - GL becomes the first soap to cross the 50 year mark on network television.

[Drew]

Y&R was not the first soap broadcast in colour, it's not even the first soap to debut in colour. It's also not the first to not use organ music, or debut without organ music. Days didn't feature organ when it premiered, and as memory serves - was the first soap to debut in colour (still not the first to broadcast in colour - dont remember who that was). Dark Shadows also did not feature organ music, it had a wonderful and creepy score.

Y&R's debut was nothing special or dateworthy. It was just another soap to come along that happened to be great.

[DruRocks]

How about Y&R was the first, and only soap, to be broadcast in High Definition TV.

IA that Y&R's debut was pivotal because of its vast production values compared to other soaps. Not to mention that the main focus was the actors, and the background always came secondary.

[Drew]

soaps prior to Y&R had their actors act infront of curtains, rather than build sets. That's something true of all soaps, none have really had a budget where they can go "look at my sets, arent they great!".

Plus, we know Y&R has always had lavish sets, and would always start scenes and episodes focused in on a piece of the set. Plus, I believe Y&R was the soap that used to have fresh flowers delivered each day that cost a significant amount of $$ before switching to fakes like the others use. Ether them or ATWT. So saying their background is secondary is untrue.

[DruRocks]

The background was always secondary to the acting, the light was always directed to the actors while the background was dark. The writers wanted the audience to feel and connect with the characters.

[Drew]

but again ... every soap focues on the acting rather than their background sets. Pointing lighting at certain things is not grounds for being a landmark. It's just a style. Just like other shows illuminate their entire sets and close the camera in on the actors faces.

[DruRocks]

But I'm talking about Y&R's overall production value when it debuted stood out from the rest.