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Santa Barbara Discussion Thread

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Paul Raven Grand Master

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Channels magazine Feb 88

 

Mid -afternoon Pickup KSDK's task: introducing Santa Barbara locally, three years after its network debut.

 

Late last summer the creative services department at Multi J media's KSDK in St. Louis got an uncommonly juicy, high -priority promotion job: to introduce the NBC soap opera Santa Barbara that the station had been preempting for the past three years. Starting a new soap in the '80s, as NBC had proven, wouldn't be a snap. It would take promotion dynamite to dislodge fans from CBS's Guiding Light and ABC's General Hospital. Back in '84, KSDK management had doubted NBC would stick with the new soap, but Santa Barbara's producers kept tinkering. They invented the Carnation Killer to remove an excess of look -alike blonde characters, recalls Susan Morse of Soap Opera Digest, and they unexpectedly thrilled viewers with the Chicano/ WASP romance of detective Cruz Castillo and a surviving blonde, Eden Capwell. By last summer, the show's national share was up from its initial 10 to 16, and KSDK found a sudden need for the soap.

 

When the CBS affiliate, KMOV, moved The Oprah Winfrey Show from morning to 3 P.M., KSDK retaliated with counterprogramming-moving its strongest NBC soap, Days of Our Lives, to the same hour. As a bridge into that soap at 3, leading out of Another World at 1 P.M., Santa Barbara was clearly preferable to the game shows KSDK had been running. Santa Barbara came to KSDK on August 31. Rich Brase, the station's creative services director, launched a 12 -week promo barrage worth a hefty 300 gross rating points (GRPs) a week-nearly as much as the aggressive station spends to promote its newscasts. Besides selling an unfamiliar soap, Brace's team had to remind Days of Our Lives fans to tune in at 3 P.M. instead of 12:30, the time Days had aired for years. Promo producer Laurie Theiss stitched together clips to make sexy generic spots for the new soap block ("Afternoons on Channel 5, we're going to make your day!"), and sent scripts to Burbank, where the Santa Barbara cast taped teasers introducing their characters (Gina Capwell: "OK, so maybe I'm not the girl next door, but I sure could show the boy next door a good time!"). Brase backed up the spots with nine ads in each of five issues of TV Guide, plus 17 radio spots starring a housewife who bubbles over about the day's plot developments.

 

Then in November, NBC supplied three cast members for a couple of suburban mall appearances to start word of-mouth publicity. A thousand fans turned out. But the station didn't rely entirely on the performers to create hysteria. It also held a contest, promising the winner a trip to Burbank and a bit part on -air. Santa Barbara still has a way to go before it conquers St. Louis. The show averaged a 3 rating and 12 share in the market's November Arbitron book, still behind the national Niel - sens (5 rating/17 share). Every little bit helps NBC, however, says Brian Frons, network v.p. for daytime programs. NBC lobbied for years to get Santa Barbara onto KSDK. Now it gets a few more tenths of a rating pointvital because Santa Barbara trails sec- ond -place Guiding Light by less than a point nationally. Locally, however, KSDK is still a distant third. But the station isn't finished promoting the show. Brase planned a second contest in January, in addition to more radio spots and increased on -air spots up to 400 or 500 GRPs a week. "We are going to win this time period," Brase predicts. "I don't like to lose. Nobody in this building likes to lose." He's counting on a little bit more publicity this month when the winner of the first contest goes to Burbank for her moment in the sun of Santa Barbara. Her name was pulled out of a drum just before Thanksgiving: Laurie Keener, who turns out to be a good-looking young woman from nearby Illinois-reportedly a model. Fate has disappointed Brase: "We were kind of hoping she would be a frumpy housewife," he grouses. "This looks a little rigged."

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juniorz1 Newbie

juniorz1

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You guys, I'll tell you what, I am re-watching Eden's split-personality storyline on YouTube and am completely mesmerized.  Every actor involved turns in top-notch performances- Gordon Thomson, A Martinez, Jed Allan, Judith McConnell.......

 

But Marcy Walker's acting has me transfixed.  When she goes into the Lisa personality, she does something with her eyes and eyelids that immediately lets you know that Eden has left the building and Lisa is running the show.   It is subtle as can be, which is what is so engrossing about MW's work.  I know people say Bev McKinsey.  Others say Susan Flannery..  And there are even a few who say Kim Zimmer.   But for my money, when Marcy Walker burst onto the Santa Barbara scene, she raised the bar to a whole nother level.  It doesn't hurt that the dialogue writing is impeccable.

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