May 5-9, 2008

[Loretta3938]

Days did not air in Philadelphia last Friday on the normal schedule. Some special news program preempted it. The NBC website told viewers they could catch it at two something in the AM the next morning. Philadelphia is one of the bigger Nielsen cities, so I expect that would explain some of the Days' loss.

[alwaysAMC]

I can't believe the AMC ratings --- the show is better now than it has been in over a year!

[wiccachick_1]

I know this wasn't directed at me but I feel like answering anyway...hehe. I only watch ABC soaps and that's all I have ever watched. I was programmed in utero to be that way and it's never changed. Right now, OLTL is the best show from top to bottom and every storyline is watchable for me. (EXCEPT I really hated Todd hanging the Markko kid on the hook. It was too AJ vs. Sonny Corinthos and it turned my stomach because I hated when Sonny did it too.) A really close second is AMC. I think if they weren't trying to force the Zach/Kendall/Aidan/Greenlee/Ryan/Annie thing it would be tied with OLTL because I'm finding all the stories pretty much watchable. I even like the AMC 6 when they interact with others instead of each other. GH is pretty much NOT watchable except I find the Michael story a bit compelling. Everything else is a big vat of suck.

Im hoping that the disenfranchised AMC and OLTL watchers are skeptical (with good reason for the way we've been treated in the past) but as Jessie and Angie remain on canvas, Frankie and Jake are woven into the fabric, they tell good stories with the characters and use the vets as they have been, maybe that lapsed group will come back. I hope so.

[Jess]

Yep RC is a hack writer too. Let me add my to the OLTL praise. RC is incredibly overrated.

I think Days is a much better soap than OLTL, as is Young and the Restless. Young and the Restless is boring right now, however. You know maybe the new writer needs to adopt the RC excuse and say she is still cleaning the previous mess. Regardless, the show is dull. Like others I don't agree rolling out stars from 20 years will make that big a difference. I would like Dru back, however. The show needs more interesting stories right now.

In my opinion AMC is improving a lot faster than the over-hyped RC's show. I hate the mob violence on GH, but even that show has better chemistry between characters that they pair together (Lulu and Johnny example) than does OLTL. It also is more creative. I sounds like I need to DVR B&B some day. I had given up on it after seeing the same show for two decades.

As for the ratings, ouch.

[JackPeyton]

wow, even with that they still lost the LEAST amount of people?!

[winterguy125]

There must be something really wrong with the ratings system as a whole, you can't tell me Y&R lost a million viewers from Thursday to Friday.

[PJA]

She never even hit a 3.7. Bell and Griffith have set 2 new lows in hh since they have arrived. While LML did hit 3.9 a few times, that low was first set by Alden and Smith. Say what you want about LML but clearly her stuff was much more interesting than this mess.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

The fact that the show has hit two new all time lows under this regime should be enough to get them canned....

[MarkH]

Yes.

My heart is breaking.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Your heart shouldn't be breaking, rest assure that Griffith and Bell brought this all on themselves and the show as a whole.

[JackPeyton]

^I disagree. IMHO... ratings for soaps work like a movie franchise. if first movie is great and does well - second movie will do well. but if it sucks then even the next one is good it will not do well. except the 'movies' or by ever month or so...

this new team hasnt had time to do much of anything. if anything this just proven the a writing team is important and having people left from lml's is hurting. because, IMHo the show is muhc better and the char's are who they whould be again.. its just painfully boring. and for that i do hate to throw this out there... but they need an event. a plot point. \a ratings draw. and one that will work and be good and actually shake the show up....

[MarkH]

Yeah...but if they kill my show, my show is still dead.

I watch it nightly, and I really still enjoy each episode. The episodes generally do what they should...make me smile, make me angry. Unlike others here, there is not a character or a story that I really don't like.

But....when I compare to OLTL (which I have a history with, but which I do not currently watch except lately), the difference is enormous. OLTL is total energy, and each episode ends with a breathless series of "tune in tomorrows" that really make me want to tune in. Most of OLTL's motivation is not explosions and crimes, but real human drama--hidden secrets, revealed emotions.

Y&R has utterly lost that tune-in-tomorrow thing. Take Nikki and David Chow's wedding. That was actually okay...I ended up really liking the episode and the artistry beneath it. But, because Victor-Sabrina and Nikki-David aren't couples that we're rooting for, it was all more passive than involving. (You're watching a train wreck...which is interesting...but that's not what stirs up the emotions). More importantly, the very next day these stories were not even mentioned. Nick was on for the whole show, but he only thought about Restless Style.

There is not a single story right now...not ONE...that invokes feelings of yearning, peril, "OMG", etc. It all reads like a very mature adult drama (HBO's "Tell Me That You Love Me", which I HATED, is a good example)...but that is NOT a crowd pleaser. NOT AT ALL.

Remember back in the day when Jack tried to marry Nikki. I forget all the details, but they ended up on a plane. And Victor decided at the last minute that he wanted Nikki back. And his plane chased Jack's plane. And then there was a reversal of direction. And Nikki ended up married to Jack.

Stupid as that sounds, it was SEAT OF THE PANTS. The actors sold it.

Well here we are. All the same actors are on the show. They may now be too old for this nonsense (that's actually an important observation, since Y&R has little viable youth storyline). But they're still great actors and can sell anything. But there was NOTHING compelling about that wedding.

Take Restless Style. We were supposed to get some drama out of Amber's virus thing and the disappearing files. Not really. There were no high stakes dramas. Like, what if in the tension, Nick and Sharon suddenly passionately kissed and both were shaken to the core by it? Or Phyllis, feeling on top of the world, suddenly gets a call from Sasha, who remembers some crime she committed? Or if Jack suddenly sees the ghost of his father again--but this time he can't hear John--yet John is desperately trying to send him an urgent message. THAT gets me in breathless anticipation for the next day.

My heart is breaking because I can see the end game for this show, and for the genre. "Not with a bang but a whimper".

[Toups]

This is all the low ratings in the past 4 years.

3.6/13 (May 5-9, 2008)

3.8/14 (April 28 - May 2, 2008)

3.8/14 (April 21-25, 2008)

3.8/14 (April 14-18, 2008)

3.8/13 (April 7-11, 2008)

3.8/13 (March 31 - April 4, 2008)

3.8/13 (March 24-28, 2008)

3.8/13 (March 10-14, 2008)

Josh and Maria already hit low ratings 8 freakin times!

3.9/14 (November 26-30, 2007)

3.9/13 (July 30 - August 3, 2007)

3.9/14 (March 26-30, 2007)

LML hit low ratings 3 times.

3.9/11 (April 18-22, 2005)

Kay Alden and John F. Smith once.

3.9/14 (June 7-11, 2004)

4.1/14 (May 31-Jun 4, 2004)

4.1/16 (April 26-30, 2004)

Kay Alden, John F. Smith, Trent Jones, Jerry Birn 3 times.

Y&R has never struggle this much for so many weeks.

[cal3]

As another in utereo ABC baby who qualifies as disinfranchised, I agree with the praise for AMC. It was never my ABC soap of choice but strangely enough it is the one I am most likely to watch now. I like the Angie and Jessie story and love the Hubbard family. Even though it is very early, I like the new Jake and am interested in seeing where they go with him and the Martin family. Erica is watchable which is a rare thing for me. I am enjoying Kendall and Greenlee for one of the first times ever. In the past I always found them difficult to watch. The show is far from perfect. Still, I like the way they are trying to rebuild.

Young and Restless is at a low point. But it looks like things are about to get interesting. Jack looks like he is going to assert himself with interesting complications. Adam is good at stirring the pot and I like the potential fall out for Victor. How long have they had a new writer?

[Y&RWorldTurner]

^I see where you're coming from Mark. I stopped being emotionally invested in these show for a while now. Soap viewing is like one disastrous abusive relationship where the audience always ends up getting hurt, yet we keep tuning back in the hope that these shows will actually get better.

Y&R is very salvageable. It hasn't lost a lot of core characters, its core cast is still good, and unlike others shows, it has money for sets and other production elements.

They seriously need to get rid of this Restless Style crap. Jack, Sharon, Phyllis, and Nick have been to involved in one another's orbit for a good 3 years now. They shouldn't still be this glued at the hip. They'll always be connected in some way, but its time to branch these characters out. Also, it wouldn't hurt to break up that DULL coupling of Nick and Phyllis.

Y&R has so much overall potential, but no one working on the show right now sees that. Hopefully with ratings freefalling worse than they did before, Josh Griffith and Maria Arena Bell will be out of a job soon. I'm tired of waiting for them to get better, they're both amateurs who simply aren't up to the task.