Today's New York Times mentions soaps in a story about court shows in daytime programming. Here's the relevant excerpt:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/08/arts/tel...ion/08stan.html

Long before “Big Brother” and “The Real World,” “The People’s Court” and “Judge Judy” were proto-reality shows, and they certainly have helped elbow out daytime soap operas; “Another World” and “Search for Tomorrow” were canceled years ago, while the ratings of even the most popular, long-running soaps keep eroding. Grand and illicit passions, punctuated by organ music and close-ups of steamy clinches, no longer provide the same thrill for viewers, perhaps because in today’s no-fault culture sex, adultery and betrayal are no longer shameful. Daytime talk shows reward participants who will submit to paternity tests or confess to incest, alcoholism, gluttony and the like.

I do believe they partially hit the nail on the head. Old storyline cliches just don't have the same thrill for those of us who have seen them repeated on many shows for years.

Discuss.

I hate how they say that the court shows knocked out soaps as if that was some grand accomplishment that everyone had been trying to do for decades.

And ugh...will they never get that soaps stopped using organ music around thirty-five years ago!?

I think the point is that soaps cannot currently compete with reality based series because their writing is too contrived. The court action isn't resting on failed models trying to pass off a routine pregnant pause as suspense either. In a world where "who's the daddy" simply doesn't hold the shock value it might have in 1980, soaps are going to have to let the cliches go to be more interesting. It's no surprise that the decade of O.J. and Monica began the decline of daytime. The audience was treated to real serials that didn't insult their intelligence.