Vintage Soap Ratings

[Matt]

Here are the Top 10 rated soaps for the 2 weeks ending 2/20/72 as reported by Daytime TV magazine (1st number is ratings, % is share)...

#1 - As the World Turns (12.0/38%)

#2 - General Hospital (11.3/35%)

#3 - Days of our Lives (10.2/32%)

#4 - The Edge of Night (9.8/31%)

#5 - Another World (9.7/31%)

#6 - Search for Tomorrow (9.5/33%)

#7 - The Doctors (9.4/31%)

#8 - The Guiding Light (9.3/31%)

#9 - Love is a Many Splendored Thing (8.7/28%)

#10 - One Life to Live (7.9/24%)

Each ratings point equals 620,000 homes, so this would translate...

#1 - ATWT - 7,440,000

#2 - GH - 7,006,000

#3 - Days - 6,324,000

#4 - TEON - 6,076,000

#5 - AW - 6,014,000

#6 - SFT - 5,890,000

#7 - DOC - 5,828,000

#8 - TGL - 5,766,000

#9 - LIAMST - 5,394,000

#10 - OLTL - 4,898,000

Other soaps on the air, but not making the top 10 (i.e. ratings lower than 7.9)...

Love of Life

Where the Heart Is

The Secret Storm

All My Children

Bright Promise (cancelled 3/31/72; replaced by Return to Peyton Place)

Somerset

The soap opera broadcast schedule for that time period...

CBS

11:30 - 12:00: Love of Life (n/a)

12:00 - 12:25: Where the Heart Is (n/a)

12:30 - 01:00: Search for Tomorrow (#6/9.5)

01:00 - 01:30: local

01:30 - 02:00: As the World Turns (#1/12.0)

02:00 - 02:30: Love is a Many Splendored Thing (#9/8.7)

02:30 - 03:00: The Guiding Light (#8/9.3)

03:00 - 03:30: The Secret Storm (n/a)

03:30 - 04:00: The Edge of Night (#4/9.8)

04:00 - 04:30: Gomer Pyle, USMC

NBC

11:30 - 12:00: The Hollywood Squares

12:00 - 12:30: Jeopardy!

12:30 - 01:00: The Who, What, or Where Game

01:00 - 01:30: local programming

01:30 - 02:00: Three on a Match

02:00 - 02:30: Days of our Lives (#3/10.2)

02:30 - 03:00: The Doctors (#7/9.4)

03:00 - 03:30: Another World (#5/9.7)

03:30 - 04:00: Bright Promise (n/a)

04:00 - 04:30: Somerset (n/a)

ABC

11:30 - 12:00: Bewitched

12:00 - 12:30: That Girl

12:30 - 01:00: Password

01:00 - 01:30: All My Children (n/a)

01:30 - 02:00: Let's Make a Deal

02:00 - 02:30: The Newlywed Game

02:30 - 03:00: The Dating Game

03:00 - 03:30: General Hospital (#2/11.3)

03:30 - 04:00: One Life to Live (#10/7.9)

04:00 - 04:30: Love, American Style

[Matt]

For point of reference, here are the 71/72 season ratings/rankings...

#1 - As the World Turns (11.1)

#2 - General Hospital (10.4)

#3 - Days of our Lives (9.9)

#4 - The Edge of Night (9.5)

#5 - The Doctors (9.3)

#6 - Another World (9.1)

#7 - Search for Tomorrow (8.8)

#8 - The Guiding Light (8.6)

#9 - Love is a Many Splendored Thing (8.0)

#10 - Love of Life (7.4)

#10 - Return to Peyton Place (7.4)

#10 - The Secret Storm (7.4)

#13 - One Life to Live (7.3)

#14 - Somerset (6.5)

#15 - Where the Heart Is (6.3)

#16 - Bright Promise (6.1)

#17 - All My Children (5.7)

[billyjill]

Neat, Matt, thanks for posting!

[RogerNewcomb]

So we know how many homes, but not the total # of viewers, right? Meaning each home could have had multiple viewers.

[winterguy125]

So out of all of them ALL My Children is the one that really pretty much did not drop all that much I mean if it was in the 5's in 72, and only in the 2's today that is alot better than GH or ATWT which was in the 11's and 12's. And seeing as total viewers were only 600,000 or so back than and are over a million now, aren't there ratings pretty much the same as they have always been.

It would be interesting to see what AMC's total viewers were in 72, I really don't think they would be much higher than today, that is unless AMC started getting better ratings at a later point.

Thanks for posting these Matt.

[WTGH]

ATWT was #1.

Where it should be.

[RogerNewcomb]

winterguy, I asked this question a few weeks ago and the answer was that the #s are the household #s in millions not the total viewers. There may be multiple people in a household watching and they count in the total viewers. ATWT had 7.44 million homes but probably like 10 million total viewers (as opposed to 3 million today).

[Matt]

Um...yeah, AMC started getting a *lot* better ratings at a later point. The show averaged a 9.4 for both the 81/82 season and the 82/83 season. It was the #1 soap with an average 9.0 rating for the 78/79 season., which was the 1st time since the 58/59 season that ATWT hadn't finished at #1 (although it had tied with Days & AW for a couple of those seasons).

When AMC premiered in 1970, it was part of an attempt by ABC to build an early afternoon soap block along the lines of CBS's lineup of LoL, WTHI, SFT. AMC premiered 1/5/70 at 1pm; "The Best of Everything" premiered 3/30/70 at noon; and "A World Apart" premiered 3/30/70 at 12:30pm. With the premieres of the last 2, the network schedules looked like this during those timeslots...

CBS

12:00pm-12:30pm: Where the Heart Is

12:30pm-01:00pm: Search for Tomorrow

01:00pm-01:30pm: local programming

NBC

12:00pm-12:30pm: Jeopardy!

12:30pm-01:00pm: The Who, What, or Where Game

01:00pm-01:30pm: local programming

ABC

12:00pm-12:30pm: The Best of Everything

12:30pm-01:00pm: A World Apart

01:00pm-01:30pm: All My Children

The Best of Everything tanked quickly, only airing 6 months. It's average rating for the 69/70 season was 1.8 (which, even today, is cancellation zone). Meanwhile, on CBS, Where the Heart Is (while not highly rated) at least averaged a 7.0 for that season. Both were being soundly beaten by Jeopardy, the #1 show in that timeslot (which it occupied for 8 1/2 years). A World Apart did do a little better averaging a 2.8 rating for the 69/70 season and 3.4 rating for the 70/71 season (the show aired for a total of 1 year, 3 months). However, SFT over at CBS averaged a 10.0 rating for the 69/70 season (the #3 soap) and 9.3 for the 70/71 season (dropping to the #8 soap). It was losing its timeslot (The Who, What, or Where Game occupied its NBC slot for just over 3 years) and was ABC's lowest rated soap opera when it was cancelled (AMC was the 2nd lowest for the 70/71 season with an average rating of 4.8). Interestingly, Dark Shadows was also cancelled in 1971 and had *higher* ratings than AMC at the time (5.3 average for the 70/71 season). A World Apart actually had a stronger ratings growth than AMC and there was some speculation at the time that AMC would be the soap cancelled and it's still believed by some that the only reason AMC survived was that it was because it was an Agnes Nixon product (which is kinda funny since OLTL wasn't exactly setting the ratings on fire). ABC's faith in the series paid off in the 72/73 season when AMC jumped from its last place spot the previous season all the was up to #8 (tieing with The Guiding Light) of 17 soaps (right behind OLTL which had also begun to see some ratings growth).