GL: Ratings and Budget Decline?

[stenbeck212]

I guess what I'm getting at is the way shows are shot in a morning and afternoon shift. If it's presumably the same day, but Reva's outdoor scenes have snow and Cassie's outdoor scenes shot a few hours later don't, that's strange. And how late will production go for scripts depicting nighttime?

I still don't see how this will cut costs either. How is it cheaper to build houses (though GL should have MUCHO experience with that by now )or subsidize a few people's mortgages than it is to stay in their studio and rely on cast cuts plus the switch from video to digital?

I'd say GH, Y&R and ATWT have maintained a decent standard in set design even if budget cuts and lackluster writing plague them. GL looks like the visual equivalent of government cheese, a last resort handout that really isn't good for you. This is television, not books. The product needs to look halfway decent.

[DaytimeFan]

I think the filming schedule of the P&G soaps is also going to have to change. British soaps are filmed like prime time shows, when they need to film a nighttime scene, they film at night. The British television industry is all about common sense. The soap stars there are not pampered, it's a gig and everyone makes $100,000 +. That being said, the soap audience in Britain is massive, a third of the country watches soaps daily so the money is there. In terms of filming, for instance Reva's scenes and Cassie's scenes, I remember CBS noting that there would be a lot more small crews armed with the digital cameras. So I think there is going to be a lot of simultaneous filming rather than one scene after another.

I totally agree. Production values are important in television. While it is true that the writing is what keeps people watching at least if the sets and actors look good the poor writing is somewhat tolerable. I mean look at Y&R, the writing is bullsh*t and yet I keep watching as I'm at least visually pleased (although even that has suffered with LML at the helm).

I'm with you stenbeck212, I don't see how this is going to actually save money. My only guess is that the studio space in Manhattan is just too cost prohibitive and the size of the crew will be able to shrink dramatically as there won't be a need to build up and take down sets since they are all permanent structures. Plus the move from video to digital. I just don't really know but I will keep my fingers crossed. ATWT and GL need this sort of rejuvenation, I hope it works out beautifully.

[aMLCproduction]

LMAO!!!!!AMEN!!!

[bellcurve]

I'll agree with you there! The first year of THE CITY seemed to be painfully unwatchable. Jane Elliot really saved that show...but by that point, it was too late.

And that was what my whole point was with AMC...even if they shifted their production model...there would still be the crappy writing to be concerned with.

The weather issue is my biggest concern. Will they shoot all the exteriors and "permanent set" stuff first and then any studio work they need to do last?

And I can tell you now, if GL and ATWT look remotely like anything we've seen from GL taping outside of the studio this past year, they can really save it. Lizzie and Reva's weird hotel party and that one "Spaulding Enterprises" office in the episode where Ava looks for Coop's story where Alan based the memory erasing drug from(or whatever the hell that was) beign key examples of what will probably turn viewers off.

I don't think GL and ATWT can make their shows look like THE HILLS on the budget that they have. But I have been proven wrong before.

[JackPeyton]

yeah, SG taped at KTLA Studios on Sunset.

i liked Conboy's GL look... yeah, stone me. i said it. what now? lol. but then again i am a "new" gl fan that started watching with danny/michelle being a couple and i loved thsat story with marah marina michelle & maryanne. so...

[Khan]

Did that room party not look the strangest? I kept saying to myself, "Any minute now, this is going to turn into a snuff film."

[jacks]

does anybody know when in january these changes take place? also, do you all think atwt and gl will get new openings? atwt never premiered their alternate openings, perhaps because they knew they were going to change it anyway?

[bellcurve]

LOL. With all the mirrors and stuff...it just looked so odd!

[Dan]

This may be a better question for Dan, but GL's ratings started to fall under Rauch...then they started to tank under Conboy. Wheeler and Kreizman were able to hold onto GL's momentum and even gain new viewers(surpassing ATWT, AMC, and OLTL at one point or another), but they never stayed and the ratings would go back to where they were.

Khan got the gist of the ratings trend. However, I also wanted to add that GL's last ratings berth was in the summer of 2001. The ABC shows were temporarily flat-lining and GL was ranked in 4th/5th place (above the ABC shows and periodically above DAYS) with a rating in the high 3.0s for about a month. This period was during the beginning of Lloyd Gold and Christopher Dunn's tenure on the show. Creatively, the wonderful Rick/Harley/Phillip story was coming to a climax. Richard and Cassie were reunited after Edmund captured Cassie. The Boudreau family entered the scene with much fanfare because of the wonderful way they were first integrated. Beth "died" in a flood in New Mexico in that crazy waterslide set they used.

However, Dunn and Gold destroyed any good faith they had accumulated by a series of really bad plot lines. The first being that cheesy earthquake in San Cristohell. Then, Danny and Michelle were forced by the mob to commit a Mission Impossible-esque theft at Spaulding. The coup de grace came with the time travel story for Reva. Any audience enthusiasm eroded and GL fell below the 3.0 mark for the first time in early 2002, March I believe.

[Dan]

Shortly after her arrival, as a matter of fact. IIRC, the first set to go was Ross Marler's former residence, the old Carriage House, which had been "in operation" since the Dobsons' era (and aside from the Bauer kitchen, might've been the oldest-standing set on the show).

Actually, the Carriage House was put out of commission way before Wheeler got there. It occurred sometime between Late-Rauch and Early Conwest. In 2002, Ross and Blake survived the Tory Granger debacle and moved out of their house because of all the bad memories. (At first, they were only going to remodel the house, but that was scraped.) Later that year, the kids moved in for a time. However, in 2003, Conwest moved the kids from the Carriage House to that old, ugly museum. After that is probably when the house was destroyed.

By the way, I echo the sentiments of a previous poster. The Bauer kitchen MUST return. It was always my favorite set because not only did it have a great deal of history, but it looked like a real homey kitchen.

This is why I will NEVER forgive Claire Labine for her tenure. She had a mob hit take place in the kitchen with bullets flying all around. To see Maureen's kitchen used in that way was truly sacrilege and the worst insult against the show's history until Conwest and DicKWheed.

[Vee]

I knew B&E were responsible for the clone and the Nursery Rhyme Stalker, but I was somehow under the impression that they had been fired shortly after and Rauch had brought someone else in. Now that I know they were responsible for San Cristobel, I have even less patience for their remaining apologists today. They had a few good years on Loving and The City long ago, and a few half-decent stories on PC which other writers probably made bearable, but they are hacks of the highest order. To know they were responsible for the majority of that ghastly, garish, overly Technicolor, big hair and sweaters era of GL with Paul Rauch that I remember with such disgust destroys any remaining shred of positive opinion of them in my mind. For a long time, that was all I knew of GL - San Cristobel, overly bright sets and clothes, tacky hair and tacky people, and the distinctly ungorgeous Kim Zimmer having everyone tell her how gorgeous she and her bighaired sister were.

That's what I'm talking about, cheap and creepy. I thought it looked like snuff and blogged all about it being a snuff film on The Wreck Center at the time.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

UGH, I hated the way Paul Rauch lit GL, everything was so bright, it was as if they greased everything with vaseline. A total contrast from today though, where you can't see anything on the show...

[Vee]

BTW, totally OT - is anyone else having any trouble watching the CBS eps of GL or ATWT or any soap online? They don't load for me, and I really wanted to catch the end of the week on GL.

[Dan]

Bwahahaha... I Agree...

[RogerNewcomb]

Try MSN. They seem to work better for me.

http://tv.msn.com/tv/series/guiding-light

http://tv.msn.com/tv/series/as-the-world-turns