A perspective on the ratings decline

[stenbeck212]

I couldn't disagree more. New characters are added all the time, but people want the tradition and history of their shows to be maintained even as they evolve. The nightly news is old too, but don't you want to be informed? I think people invest way too much in one or two characters, and if things aren't going well for them, it's easy to tune out. The supercouple craze eventually hurt the genre, if you ask me. Writers assume that decades of making up and breaking up is going to keep us interested.

[DeeeDee]

Great post!

[Wales2004]

IA with your points.

I think a lot of valid reasons have been offered for the ratings decline.

The decline is obviously going to continue because soaps don't seem to attract much in the way of new viewers. Maybe they get viewers who may have traded one soap in for another.

I'm sure if they could have pinpointed what it would take to bring in new viewers it would have happened by now but it's difficult to figure out what people really want. Some people want to see vets front and center, some want to see fresh faces, some want older characters, some want younger, others want a balance, some want realistic stories, others want fantasy stories. I guess when that leads some of them to assuming that what they want should satisfy their audiences and that doesn't work either.

Right now the bulk of their audiences probably consist of people who have been watching for years and don't want to give their soaps up. It's hard to attract new viewers who are going to have the patience to sit through months of repetition waiting for a pay off to a story, only to feel a bit letdown when it finally comes. I know I probably wouldn't bother watching any of them if I wasn't used to them already.

[Vee]

It is interesting, looking at how the British soaps evolved and how their fans seem to take it relatively in stride. When I finally get back to working on the Wreck Center I have an Eastenders post planned and a discussion of the Britsoaps.

On Eastenders last Christmas, they killed off the show matriarch Pauline Fowler. Wendy Richard, who played her, chose to leave because they had allowed the widowed Pauline to remarry after many years, while she felt Pauline would always "sit in the corner" alone with her husband's picture. I find that incredibly depressing but I understood the actor's POV. Anyway, Pauline was written out in the most heartbreaking way possible - insecure and embittered over her youngest son's marriage, she schemed and claimed she was dying of a brain tumor (I think) in a most out of character storyline to keep him close to her. She drove her family and friends away when she was found out, and even her new husband was driven to try and choke her in a rage. Finally, he hit her over the head with a frying pan. She had a skull fracture. She called her son's phone, crying, desperate to try and make up with him as he prepared to leave with his family for America, saying "I don't want to leave it like this, I'm sorry," then she walked through the park in the snow, fell down, and died. Her son only heard the message after she was found dead.

This was the show's matriarch. That's how she went out. That's how the British soaps handle a lot of longtime characters, and their audiences seem to roll with it, though some found this distasteful and certainly the actress wasn't happy. Even at their best, which EE no longer is, the British soaps - which I think are still better written than ours - seem to me to be incredibly merciless when dealing with departures or exits. The fans roll with it. I don't know how.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I think Gloria Monty entire philosophy for soaps killed the genre. As much as it was popular at the time, it really wound up hurting the genre in the long run. There's only so far adventure stories, super-couples, and supernatural elements can get you. Just because GH soared in the early 80's, every soap, barring Y&R, had to jump on that formula. It's continued somewhat since, though its been refined from time to time. I remember an interview with Wendy Riche, former GH EP, where she said when first came to GH in 93, "the adventure-theme storylines and sheer campy-ness had run its course." She wanted to refocus the show on family, socially relevant topics, and give it a sense of familiarity and heart. She succeeded for the most part, but since she left, GH has regressed and gone back to that formula that spelt its destruction in the early 90's. Sad to say, other soaps aren't much better.

[NeoAngelicLiz]

Thanks for this post. It was definitely interesting to read. I don't know how much you know about their soaps over there but how are their ratings doing overall?

It seems sorta contradictory for people (I mean people in general) to want things to remain traditional and the same while expecting evolution at the same time. Its just not possible. Maybe the themes and stuff can remain the same but faces and storylines should be explored.

It just seems like the American audience is more resistant to change or anything new IMO.

[edgeofnik]

One wild card with soaps (unlike prime time shows) is that they are on five days a week. (Duh!). However, viewers used to watch 4-5 times a week. That's just not the case anymore. It's more like 2-3 times unless you are recording. In other words, people are watching only half the episodes they were watching before. That certainly accounts for the decline. This trend was accelerated with the internet and spoilers. Now that episodes are streamed, I'd be curious how many people are watching on-line. People have been declaring the death of soaps since the mid-90s and they are still around. SoapNet appears to be successful. I doubt CBS would have gone to the trouble of streaming all their shows if it was a losing proposition. (They just added B&B this week.) Why would DirecTV pick up PASS if it didn't believe it could work for them. (I have no idea how the ratings are.) I agree the writing is lame and definitely miss the days when each show had it's own identity. Maybe the writers' strike will cause a shake up and we can get some new blood in the industry instead of recylcing all the same folks.

[Vee]

I don't know the ratings situation for the Britsoaps. I do know it seems that EE fans are fairly unhappy these days, at least to me, but I could be wrong.

It seems like when an actor leaves under the slightest hint of acrimony or leaves for another show or network, they go down hard. Steve Owen, mobster heartthrob, died in a fiery car explosion on-camera because the actor left to go be in a show on ITV. When old Leslie Grantham, who played the beloved "Dirty Den", violated the conduct clause of his contract by getting into a humiliating Internet sex scandal, Den was killed off. Den (EE's original antihero) is also, I think, one of the few if not the only character on British soaps to come back from the dead, and the press ridiculed that twist. Den's second death torpedoed the resurgence of his family, the Watts, which had become a force to be reckoned with again after something like 13 years.

Re: GH, I don't think they do camp and adventure so much as constant unending death. Killing Georgie and Emily in rapid succession is nuts, but they've been killing and killing since Bob Guza came back, killing needlessly, hurting their future. It's just been an endless parade of shocks.