Saving GL or Creating a new soap?

[Chris B]

I've always said that to great opposition that CBS should just cancel GL and replace it with another revolutionary soap like Y&R or B&B which could completely turn around the network. By that I mean another traditional, but progressive soap with a clear vision and a great visionary at the helm. Not a silly experiment like Sunset Beach, Passions or Port Charles. Try launching a true traditional soap with a strong cast and writing and see what happens.

At this point I don't care how old Guiding Light is, no matter what they do the ratings will never pick up. They get tons and tons of Emmy love each year and it does nothing for the ratings. With the severe budget cuts they can't even flesh out the families or bring on good actors. If you guys think GL can be saved in terms of ratings, how? And when stating your ideas keep the budget in mind. Revamp by cast returns is simply not possible here.

With a new soap they have a chance, with GL there is no chance. Surely a new soap can't do much worse, but if done correctly and promoted and well cast I think it could work. Yes, you can list all of the recent new soaps, but none were done in the traditional format whereas all the other soaps were (at least in the beginning) and you see they're still around.

Right now CBS is in the best position to do it. The rest of the lineup (including Price is Right) is very strong and GL is the main weak link. ATWT is in the gutter now, but they haven't suffered the budget cuts and have shown with good writing the ratings can go up. They saw major increases last year, which they lost due so dreadful writing.

So, would you save Guiding Light for sentimental reasons or save CBSDaytime and potentially daytime as a whole? If the latter, who would you want to create the new soap and what do you think a good idea for it would be?

[MoTheGreat]

Why create a new soap if they going to get the same old writers that either wrote for GL or who wrote for one of the other soap?

[Q Steph]

Cancel GL, get better writers and launch a new soap.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Personally I'd love for CBS to create a new 30 MINUTE SOAP, something similar to Ryan's Hope, you know, a soap that basically owned the 30 min format. It would be in stark contrast to B&B, and more in the RH vein. It would take place in a large city, unlike ATWT, GL, and Y&R and center around one core family, that wasn't a typical WASP family, but perhaps a working-class immigrant family and a circle of assorted friends and enemies. I can dream, can't I?

[tanyia2]

CBS would be foolish to cancel GL and then start a new soap opera. The only problem GL has is the current regime which can be fixed by hiring experienced people that love the soap and the history.

[bellcurve]

This is by far one of the best questions I've seen in a long time and quite frankly, it's a hard one for me to answer...

On one end, I love GL. I think it's one of the most well-acted, well-scripted soaps in daytime(notice that I say scripted instead of WRITTEN...hopefully someone can make that distinction). But I can either watch the show or miss the show.

A new daytime soap, however, would breathe so much new life into the genre and we desperately need that. We're into the last half of the decade and there has yet to be a premiere of a network daytime soap(I wish SPYDER GAMES and the MyNetworkTV telenovelas counted to the soap press as actual daytime soaps, but they don't).

I would avoid expanding B&B to a full hour and instead, concentrate all efforts on leeching off of B&B's audience for a solid 3rd Place spot, the same way Y&R and B&B constantly dominate the #1 and #2 spot. If I were in charge of things at CBS, I would cancel ATWT and move the most interesting movers and shakers to GL and go from there. GL, by far, is the cheaper of the two shows to produce, has the most history and ATWT and GL(separate a tenth of a point or two) are always neck to neck.

With the exception of the AW crossovers and few random viewing that have piqued my interest, I have never really had much use for ATWT. Go ahead ATWT fans, throw bricks at my head!

I also feel they need to tape this show in LA. Cheaper on the production costs from what I hear.

New Schedule would look like this:

Noon/12:30- Y&R

1:30- B&B

2:00- New Soap

3:00-GL

But WHO would be a great visionary?! That's the question I'm asking right now.

I'd LOVE it if Bloom recruited her old friend, Karen Harris(they were co-Heads at PC during that shows best year in 2000), to create her own soap owned by CBS. Or if moving Brad Bell to his own hourlong soap(co-owned by Bell/CBS) meant having someone like Patrick Mulcahey or Jack Smith in charge of B&B, I would be all for it! A Karen Harris and/or Michele Val Jean created soap would rock my socks!

I say absolutely no way to a novelist, primetime writer, or someone who knows jack $hit about soaps trying to write or produce one, because that's where we would get the experiments again. So no to people like Lynn Marie Latham, ESPECIALLY Scott Hamner, James Harmon Brown and Barbara Esenten, and a HELLS no to people like Milli Vanilli's mom, who would spend her time self-promoting on a message board as LucindaWalsh4Life instead of writing competent, compelling stories.

And no to people who are recycled hacks, like Margaret DePriest, Leah Laiman, Jill Farren Phelps, Guza and Pratt Jr., Jimmy Reilly.

I agree that CBS is in the best position to develop a new, awesome soap. But I would hope TPTB at CBS think long and hard about who would be in charge of this new soap...and I would totally cancel ATWT and keep GL on the air.

[ANDREA LOATHES REILLY]

I so want to agree with this because, lately, I have seen some stories with great potential that gets me all excited, and then they fizzle. I stopped watching Trassions for this very reason only GL is not even close to descending to the degree of filth Trassions has become. However, if TPTB do not remove Mr. Blue Balls as head writer, the show will never improve. I have never seen such a pre-ejaculator in my life. The man knows nothing about pacing, and when something so obvious is right in front of him, DK ignores it and takes an easy out. He's so annoying. I just began to watch again, but I am about to remove GL from Tivo...

Save GL, which is equivalent to 'GET RID OF KREIZMAN"!!!!!

ANDREA

[King]

GL really does need to pull its sh!t together.

They could start by hiring people who care about soap operas instead of those who are out to make the cheapest piece of crap production so they can go home and sit on their fat @$$es!

[ANDREA LOATHES REILLY]

ROTFLMAO!!!!! I'm in tears here...

The sets in yesterday's eppy were so damn cheap. It's like they can't even pay a light bill.

ANDREA

[King]

I know. It looks like they are filming it at a local high school auditorium! GL needs to make some major changes. LIKE WOAH!

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Let's not forget that GL airs as early as 10 AM in some markets and as late as 3PM in others. Also, some CBS affiliates don't even carry the show. Should CBS cancel GL and create another soap, what will this mean for the new soap?

[aMLCproduction]

thanks for the good laugh everyone.. GL's hopsital set looks like its i dont even know how to explain. it reminds me of jungle. is that bamboo?

[DrewH]

I don't think a new soap opera in daytime could survive. Execs just don't have the patience anymore to let soaps grow.

[SpiritualJunkie]

Here we go again...

Personally, I think ATWT and Days is in far deeper sh-t than GL is at the moment. The acting, for the most part is great despite the bad writing and if the writers have done something right, it's that they are distributing airtime quite fairly.

Didn't GL reach a 2.5 or a 2.6 in some of their dailies this year? So obviously, with good writing, the show can get the ratings. What the show needs are good competant writers who will appreciate the characters and the history of the show and write accordingly. Right now, they are writing for characters viewers could care less about, firing good actors, etc. A low budget will be harder to notice if the writing is 'there'. In the end, nicer sets does not equal great storytelling. And while a better budget could be used to bring back favourites, i think they need to work with the good actors/characters that they have now.

[JamesF]

I don't think a new soap would survive in the current climate. Not unless it was totally different to the turgid stuff that is already being offered. Definitely 30 minutes, location shooting, reality based, film look. No models for actors, multi-generational, able to tackle social issues and away with the soap cliches. No long looks, no false cliffhangers, no OTT scoring.

IF such a show was to be made, I don't think axing GL is the way to go. I agree with bellcurve that GL is one of the best acted and scripted shows on daytime right now. It has a maturity in the performances and day-to-day dialogue that none of the others do and regardless of anyone's feelings on Kreizman the stories on GL are far more reality based than the other shows right now. What it needs predominantly is a decent co-headwriter and a budget increase.

My opinion (and it would never happen due to the budget format) is that CBS should cut all of its shows down to 30 minutes. We're entering an On Demand age so the "it's aired in daytime" excuse for low viewers won't fly much longer. They should try to diversify the shows and cater to different audiences. There's room for the escapism of the likes of B&B but these shows have to be guilty pleasures that people want more of instead of bloated, overwritten dinosaurs. People don't have time to watch a bunch of 60 minute shows anymore and primetime has increased in quality while daytime has decreased. I still maintain that if every other country is able to produce relatively realistic 30 minute daily soaps with good production values then the US audience shouldn't expect anything less.