April 21-25, 2008

[Angela]

The show has been more balanced than it has been in years since the beginning of March. Meaning at least half of the top 10 has been characters over 45+ who have a long history with the show. The quality of writing has improved slowly since the beginning of March. Maybe it's just going to take time, often improvement doesn't quickly get results. Not that I think AMC is all that great but compared to strike-time and before it's better - though I'd much prefer Hubbard stuff like this week vs. the yelling and creeping in of the past that's been going on before it. And the improvement has to be consistent. These are kin to the numbers from October to mid-December (demos, HH, viewers). In the past 15 weeks since the returns there only been 5 weeks where they went up in viewers. Maybe that 2/25 (-300 grand) week turned off people long-term (awful, awful sextet week)?

2/25/08.....*6.....2.0.....07...*7) 1.3/08.....4) 1.0/06.....8) 15,000.....8) 2,588,000 (-308,000/-779,000)

3/3/08.......*6.....2.0.....07...*4) 1.3/08...*5) 0.7/05.....8) 11,000.....7) 2,559,000 (-029,000/-612,000)

3/10/08.....*5.....2.0.....07...*3) 1.3/08...*4) 0.8/05.....8) 18,000.....7) 2,546,000 (-013,000/-615,000)

3/17/08.....*6.....2.0.....06.....8) 1.2/07...*5) 0.8/05.....5) 38,000.....8) 2,515,000 (-031,000/-518,000)

3/24/08.....*6.....1.9.....06...*6) 1.2/08...*4) 0.8/05.....8) 20,000.....7) 2,461,000 (-054,000/-512,000)

3/31/08.....*6.....1.9.....06...*5) 1.2/07.....5) 0.7/05.....8) 16,000.....7) 2,413,000 (-048,000/-596,000)

4/7/08.........6.....2.0.....07...*5) 1.3/08...*5) 0.7/05.....8) 14,000.....6) 2,555,000 (+142,000/-514,000)

4/14/08.....*6.....1.9.....07.....7) 1.2/08...*6) 0.7/04.....5) 24,000.....7) 2,408,000 (-147,000/-710,000)

4/21/08.......7.....2.0.....07...*6) 1.1/08.....5) 0.7/05...*7) 20,000.....7) 2,466,000 (+058,000/-747,000)

ETA:

MONDAY, APRIL 21

1.(1) Y&R: Monday: 4.0/5,541,000 (+570,000)

2.(2) B&B: Monday: 2.8/4,020,000 (+553,000)

3.(3) ATWT: Monday: 2.1/3,052,000 (+218,000)

4.(4) DAYS: Monday: 2.2/2,961,000 (+232,000)

5.(5) GH: Monday: 2.3/2,940,000 (+333,000)

6.(7) OLTL: Monday: 2.1/2,613,000 (+478,000)

7.(8) AMC: Monday: 2.1/2,575,000 (+517,000)

8.(6) GL: Monday: 1.7/2,414,000 (-91,000)

TUESDAY, APRIL 22

1.(1) Y&R: Tuesday: 3.8/5,266,000 (-275,000)

2.(2) B&B: Tuesday: 2.8/3,788,000 (-232,000)

3.(5) GH: Tuesday: 2.4/3,144,000 (+204,000)

4.(4) DAYS: Tuesday: 2.2/3,036,000 (+75,000)

5.(3) ATWT: Tuesday: 2.2/2,909,000 (-143,000)

6.(6) OLTL: Tuesday: 2.1/2,806,000 (+193,000)

7.(7) AMC: Tuesday: 2.0/2,529,000 (-46,000)

8.(8) GL: Tuesday: 1.8/2,393,000 (-21,000)

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 23

1.(1) Y&R: Wednesday: 3.6/5,175,000 (-91,000)

2.(2) B&B: Wednesday: 2.6/3,549,000 (-239,000)

3.(3) GH: Wednesday: 2.4/3,213,000 (+69,000)

4.(4) DAYS: Wednesday: 2.1/2,965,000 (-71,000)

5.(5) ATWT: Wednesday: 2.1/2,855,000 (-54,000)

6.(6) OLTL: Wednesday: 2.1/2,658,000 (-148,000)

7.(7) AMC: Wednesday: 2.0/2,497,000 (-32,000)

8.(8) GL: Wednesday: 1.7/2,361,000 (-32,000)

THURSDAY, APRIL 24

1.(1) Y&R: Thursday: 4.0/5,534,000 (+359,000)

2.(2) B&B: Thursday: 2.8/3,931,000 (+382,000)

3.(5) ATWT: Thursday: 2.1/3,038,000 (+183,000)

4.(3) GH: Thursday: 2.2/2,844,000 (-369,000)

5.(4) DAYS: Thursday: 2.0/2,777,000 (-188,000)

6.(6) OLTL: Thursday: 2.0/2,537,000 (-121,000)

7.(8) GL: Thursday: 1.6/2,444,000 (+83,000)

8.(7) AMC: Thursday: 1.8/2,327,000 (-170,000)

FRIDAY, APRIL 25

1.(1) Y&R: Friday: 3.6/5,151,000 (-383,000)

2.(2) B&B: Friday: 2.5/3,609,000 (-322,000)

3.(4) GH: Friday: 2.4/2,999,000 (+155,000)

4.(3) ATWT: Friday: 1.9/2,725,000 (-313,000)

5.(6) OLTL: Friday: 2.1/2,689,000 (+152,000)

6.(5) DAYS: Friday: 2.0/2,681,000 (-96,000)

7.(8) AMC: Friday: 1.9/2,401,000 (+74,000)

8.(7) GL: Friday: 1.6/2,258,000 (-186,000)

[MarkH]

I wonder if anyone cares about this thread not-on-a-Thursday.

If yes, I want to advance an alternative proposition to the general refrain of "bad writing is killing soaps" that recurs in this thread.

Maybe you saw the profusion of articles this week about how primetime ratings are awful, and way off from pre-WGA-strike levels. Last week, there was hue and cry about how American Idol's ratings are way off.

Today's USA Today says, in part "Ratings shortfalls for some top series have sparked Hollywood hand-wringing...shows...hit all-time lows in recent weeks...[and] are down sharply from last spring. Some observers blame the writer's strike."

The article goes on to say it is more than the strike...that DVR recording is part of the story. 24% of homes now have DVRs, compared to 16% last Spring.

So, here's the thing:

Entertainment ratings are down across the board. I'm at a conference now, and we're talking about those "millenials"...folks who are now in their 20s and younger. And the truth of the matter is, so the theme goes, this is a much more active and less consumeristic (in the sense of passively watching entertainment) generation.

The eyeballs have fled passive TV (and movies at the theater and video store) across the board. Numbers are down everywhere.

Where are they? Apparently World of Warcraft as 12 million (!) PAID subscribers. Apparently Grand Theft Auto IV did $400 million (!) in sales since its release. These are, as you know, immerse storylines where users control the tools and create the narrative.

Along with Myspace, Facebook and so forth, these are also more inherently social situations than the old sit-and-watch TV.

===

So, if passive entertainment is in decline across the board (books and magazines ain't faring very well either, by the way), then why are we wringing our hands about every soap rating decimal? IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH SOAPS.

I will confess, soaps have an extra disadvantage. Their daytime presentation means the core viewers (women 18-49) are out of the house (as we all know). Soaps are also "uncool" and "products of grandmother's generation", and those are extra disadvantages.

Again, I am personally a lover of the genre...obsessively so...but I'm in the minority. Soaps are considered dreck and dregs outside of our little communities here, and NOTHING has ever changed that.

With grandma-and-mom out of the house, soaps lost their "community" or "social appeal". Many of us started watching WITH our multi-generational families. So that means soaps offered a social component IN ADDITION to their narrative "worlds without end". But those days are over.

Indeed, I think these online soap communities, with SON being Number One (in my book), represent an attempt for "millenials" and those of us who love them to try to bring social community BACK to the soaps.

===

So, here's my question? Why are we all so busily trashing the writers and producers and blaming them for every little decimal-point random walk in the ratings? The whole concept of passive entertainment is dying, and taking soaps with it. On top of that, the daytime time slot and the uncool figure put the final nails in the coffin of a genre that comes from a bygone era (radio, for cryin' out loud).

I really mean the above paragraph as a QUESTION, not a criticism. I trash the writers as much as anyone :-). But why do we do it. What we're seeing in soap ratings HAS NOTHING TO DO with what is being put on screen. It has to do with much larger social and cultural movements that are out of TPTB control.

[Toups]

Mark, you should repost this in the new ratings thread (which will be posted later tonight). This thread is going to be closed/moved soon.

[MarkH]

Okay--if you don't think the repeat is going to upset folks.