If this lethargy continues, when will daytime die forever?

[All My Shadows]

That's what I've always thought of as a great scenario, but like you said, the networks would probably never, ever take the chance of airing soaps twice a day. It's take up way too much affiliate time, especially for shows that are considered a "dying breed."

A couple of years ago, A&E would air reruns of "The View" in the primetime access timeslot. I think it'd be awesome if cable stations like Lifetime and TNT repeated the soaps in that timeslot. It's pretty much be the same as what SOAPnet's been doing, but it wouldn't be an entire network based around it and it'd also be networks that are in wayyyyy more homes than SOAPnet is.

[ian]

They could put together one hour in the evening, of a selection from that day's show... i.e. on ABC - 20 mins of AMC, 20 of OLTL and 20 of GH, just to be a recap, and finish each with that episode's cliffhanger, makes you decide if you want to tape the show the next day. Imagine how much more time you'd have in your day if you could watch all 3 of your shows in an hour? Besides, most of the hour-long shows are filler anyway.

On CBS, it'd be 15 mins Y&R 15 B&B (this would be more than half the episode when you think of commercials), 15 ATWT 15 GL - I think it'd be more interesting especially for people with a short attention span with dying soaps!

[Max]

I honestly don't believe that the soap genre is in any grave danger. Remember, it has been nine years since the last long-running soap was cancelled. And today, the only soap in major danger of cancellation is GL.

It really is amazing that the soap genre is not in danger of extinction, given the huge decline in ratings over the past decade. The sole reason for this, I believe, is that the networks fear that any other programming (that would replace soaps) would get even worse ratings than soaps.

I certainly expect that the majority of the eight remaining soaps will still be on network television fifteen years from now.

[MarkH]

Yeah, but the problem is the world has left primetime too.

They're doing pretty much this, but they're doing it on the internet.

I think the future involves the internet....here, I believe TPTB are right. We need to break away from TV.

[MarkH]

Oh, I just don't see this. If you follow the trends, we're headed to a number of shows less than 2...and closer to 1 (HH ratings) in the next year or two. At that level, I just do not see economic viability.

I think the P&G shows and Days will go next, and then (if the trends continue) AMC. I see all these shows starting to go by 2010...and certaintly by 2015.

I don't see any attempt to replace them. I think the networks will give the time slots back to the affiliates, and they will do the local free-for-alls with syndicated programming and locally produced cheap stuff.

Longer-term, the networks are going to change anyway. I just don't see the network-affiliate thing continuing. The new trend in broadcasting is to be a cable/satellite network. I see the affiliates and the networks divorcing, and the affiliates becoming exclusive purveyors of local content and syndication. They will continue to be economically viable, I think, as local broadcasters of local commercials. We'll probably see a reduction in local affiliates too once each network doesn't have to be represented in each area.

Longer-term than that, on-demand changes the universe as appointment TV goes away. Most cable/Satellite providers already do this. But the real next step is what Netflix is doing...expanding internet downloads. I already hook my computer up to my 42" HD screen (which comes with computer hookups, USB ports. RCA ports...basically it connects to anything. And it has the standalone ability to play mpegs and jpgs on a USB drive), and watch Netflix's (limited) content when I want.

I suspect that this is just the leading edge, as the networks work out the kinks in Digital Rights Management. Then, I-tunes and Netflix and so forth become the true leading broadcasters.

I suspect that helps entertainment at one level...because people watch what they want. The market decides. It hurts in another way, because only programs enjoyed by large numbers will get made....that works against quirky, independent, niche stuff.

I don't see ANYWHERE in this formula that soaps--daily appointment TV--are economically viable or can flourish. So, once commercial TV can't support them anymore (which I really think is now already), they disappear without replacement. I see GL, then Days, then ATWT, then AMC, then OLTL, then GH, then B&B and then Y&R cancelled, in that order. I see GL going in 2010, and then the others shows one-by-one. If we assume we lose a show a year, and Y&R is the last to go (big assumption), that means the final current soap dies in 2017. That gives us nine more years of the genre.

That's what I'm counting on, more or less.

I should add that I actually think ABC will kill all three soaps in one fell swoop. It will decide Soapnet is not viable, and then shutter the whole operation. My intuition is that all three ABC shows disappear in 2013 or 2014.

[All My Shadows]

I've been thinking about the whole thing a lot lately, a whooooole lot, and in thinking about it, I've noticed some trends myself. I'm not sure if they're good trends or bad trends or if they mean anything at all, but I find it all sort of interesting:

First of all, all of the soaps that were on the air at the end of 2001 secured a spot in history. It was the first time that two whole years went by without the cancellation of a soap since at least the mid 1960s. Basically, every two years, at least one soap left the air, and this was a constant trend from 1966 (with the death of "Never Too Young" and some others) all the way through 1999 (with "Another World" and "Sunset Beach"). No matter how popular or unpopular the soaps were or how long-running or short-lived they had been, the trend is definitely there. Just to back it up, here's the list:

1966: Never Too Young, A Flame in the Wind/A Time for Us, The Young Marrieds, Morning Star, Paradise Bay, The Moment of Truth

1967: The Nurses

1968: none

1969: Hidden Faces

1970: none

1971: Dark Shadows

1972: Bright Promise

1973: Love is a Many Splendored Thing, Where the Heart Is

1974: The Secret Storm, Return to Peyton Place

1975: How to Survive a Marriage

1976: Somerset

1977: Lovers and Friends (if you consider this and FRFP two different series)

1978: For Richer For Poorer

1979: none

1980: Love of Life

1981: none

1982: Texas, The Doctors

1983: none

1984: The Edge of Night

1985: none

1986: Search for Tomorrow

1987: Capitol

1988: none

1989: Ryan's Hope

1990: none

1991: Generations

1992: none

1993: Santa Barbara

1994: none

1995: Loving (if you want to consider LOV and CITY two different soaps)

1996: none

1997: The City

1998: none

1999: Another World, Sunset Beach

Another trend that is related is that every single year from 1962 to 1970, there was at least one new soap on the air. Yet, every single year from 1970 to 1978, there was at least one soap that was canceled. In the last 45 years, there have only been a handful of years where there was neither a cancellation nor a debut: 1979, 1981, 1985, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, 1996, 1998, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, and 2007; if you count NBC's cancellation of "Passions," you could take '07 off the list.

Eh, I don't know what any of this means or if it's even relevant to anything, but I found it interesting. Since the turn of the century, the networks have been much slower to off soaps than they had been for nearly 35 years. Soap debuts spread out a lot after the 1960s, too, it seems. The nine years since PSNS made its debut is no doubt the longest amount of time without a new soap for sure; previously, it had been the six years between "Generations" and "The City." So, the period we're in right now in 2008 just happens to be the longest period ever of no activity what-so-ever when it comes to soaps debuting or ending.

Again, I don't know what any of it means or if it makes any sense (it probably doesn't, lol) but it's just some stream of conscience observations.

[MarkH]

I have been thinking along the same lines. Here is what I THINK it means:

Low ratings and cancellation are nothing new.

The soaps we have today are special, in large measure, because they are "survivors". They have achieved much more than the median lifetime of a soap (which is only about 2 years!!)...and in that sense, they don't tell us much about "typical" soaps.

Typical soaps have short lifespans. Even Passions had a much longer lifespan than the typical soap.

So, what HAS changed?

1. More soaps than ever before are close to the cancellation threshold. As median ratings approach the 1-2 range, shows disappear.

2. Unlike that luminous past you list, the rate of replacement has slowed. There are no new soaps planned. THAT is why the genre is dying. If we knew our shows were disappearing, but new ones would come (some of which would last)....no one would think the genre is doomed. It is the fact that the genre is being allowed to attrite down to zero that shows death is nigh.

[All My Shadows]

I totally agree. As a matter of fact, I was going to get in to that with my earlier post, but I thought it was long enough as it is lol. I think it shows that soaps do have a shelf life, that they aren't invincible. I hate to say it, because I can never imagine a world without ATWT or GL or AMC or DAYS, but I truly believe that as much as we want to believe that soaps can live on successfully for 50 or more years, they just can't. Any soap that lasts 35-40 years is a major success, IMO, and I don't think it's unheard of for those involved, including the creator if he or she is still alive, to make a conscious decision to end the show. Hey, if it's still on top, well then, yeah, you can squeeze out a couple more years. But as I think more about it, it's really silly to hold on to a show like GL which has been in my own little lingo, a "dead" soap, for years. It's not as if there isn't 71 years of history behind the show. It's not as if it hasn't left its mark. Canceling it now wouldn't send it into a land of forgotten soaps.

I think the idea of US daytime soaps should be the same as telenovelas, but with much, much longer runs. There should be an interweaving of soaps on the air. As the old guard disappears, we have slightly younger soaps moving to the forefront, and after a while, those soaps would go, and there'd be soaps following. In the 1970s, you had a number of soaps in the 20-year range. You had all of the P&G soaps (besides AW and "Somerset") making two decades, then by the 80s, you had those soaps turning 30, then the ones left over were making 40 in the 1990s. As much as we love ATWT and GL and would want them to last forever, I think there should have been a point where the producers realized that those shows couldn't last forever (what TV show can?) and that it was time to slide them out of the picture. And then, soaps such as GH, AW, and DAYS could be considered the old guard. And after they left, you'd have OLTL, AMC, and Y&R holding things up. But I think the problem came in the 80s, when many of the soaps that should have lasted longer and became the new long-running soaps were canceled. "Ryan's Hope" died, "Loving" died, "Capitol" died, "Santa Barbara" died. Had they not been canceled (or had low enough ratings to be canceled), I fully believe that they would have been still on the air while the old guard ATWT and GL would be gone. There's always, of course, the matter of ratings and the fact that the soaps currently on the air have been the higher rated soaps of the last twenty years. If in the late 80s or early 90s, someone made you pick 8 soaps to still be on the air in 2008, based solely on ratings, the shows we currently have would have been your choices.

Eh, again, total stream of conscience posting here, so if it doesn't make any sense at all, I'm sorry. I like to think out loud when I'm dealing with my unhealthy obsession with soap history.

The basic gist of what I'm saying, though, is that I completely agree with you when you say that the lack of replacement soaps has contributed greatly to the death of the genre. If we had, say, one soap that has been around for between 40 and 50 years (GH or DAYS), two soaps that have been around for between 30 and 40 years (any two out of OLTL, AMC, and Y&R), maybe three soaps that have been around somewhere between 20 and 30 years (B&B and two of the canceled soaps, maybe SB and LOV), and two soaps that have been around between 10 and 20 years (PC and SuBe, or maybe even "Generations"), I wonder what the climate would be like, if it'd be any different at all from what we have now or what we've had in the recent past.

Just being a little observational and very analytical here (I tend to get that way), let's take the year that's in my signature, 1978. At that time you had five soaps in the 20-30 range, five in the 10-20 range, and four in the 0-10 range. Being that it was only about thirty years since soaps had come to TV, you weren't going to have fifty-year-old soaps or forty-year-old soaps or even thirty-year-old soaps, so they were all still quite fresh and they didn't have decades on top of decades of history to stay faithful to, to acknowledge, and to remember.

At this point, I think I'm just conversing and not really talking about anything in particular lol

[KateW]

Sorry to bump up an old thread but this is an interesting comment. So Global Toronto has more Y&R viewers than WCBS New York (CBS's flagship station), KCBS Los Angeles (Y&R's home station, so to speak, since Y&R is recorded in Los Angeles at CBS Television City), and WBBM Chicago (hometown of the Bells)? I've read over the years that New York and Los Angeles are known as "ABC towns" because of the popularity of the ABC daytime dramas in those cities. I'm guessing "CBS towns" are probably more in the midwest and south as opposed to the northeast and west coast.

[DaytimeFan]

Peter Bergman said that Toronto had the highest saturation of Y&R viewers in the world. I don't know how the show does in specific American markets...

That said, checking the recent BBM ratings information for the last three weeks....Y&R is UP in comparison to when this thread started. In fact, the first two weeks the show got over 900,000 viewers. Last week it got 850,000....the ratings for Y&R, in Canada at least, are stable. Canadians love their soaps!

[EricMontreal22]

Shame they moved Y&R from "after school" in Vancouver/West Coast to 2pm--a HUGE mistake I think

[EricMontreal22]

I've read in soap books--and I swear I never believed it but... that Loving actually often did better in New York than Y&R (!)

[DaytimeFan]

It is a HUGE mistake...that said it could certainly be corrected if that horrible Dr Phil spin off 'The Doctors' bombs in Canada which, I think, it will.

[Ryan Chamberlain]

What's needed the most to keep soaps alive are better writers...and EP's who actually give a damn when it comes to this genre and it's viewers.

For example ABC's EP Brian Frons doesn't give a flying flip about what ABC soap viewers want. He keeps shoving characters and pairings down our throats because he likes to dictate what a head writer does.

For a bigger example. How many people have asked that Ryan and Greenlee on AMC not be paired again. Due to the way Ryan treated Greenlee last time around? Yet still. Frons has dictated that Pratt write this stupid storyline. Even though Pratt's tenure was supposed to bring about change that us viewers would love. How is re-hashing a hated couple change anyways? Seriously. It's not.

I honestly believe if Frons and the other EPs of the soaps were switched to people who don't want to sink the S.S. Daytime. That they wouldn't hover over the writers as much. And, more viewers would be happy with the way Daytime TV is going.

Also, we need a word of mouth thing going. I try to tell everyone I know who used to watch AMC, OLTL, GH, Y&R, and ATWT. (because, those are the ones I watch) what's going on that is good. And, tell them to tune back in. I've already had 5 friends and neighbors who did. And, they're still watching.

My goal is to tell more and more people. And, to get other people I know online to do the same. If you like a storyline on your favorite show. Tell others who use to watch what's good about it. It'll work alot of times.

Point is. WORD OF MOUTH IS GOOD.

[marceline]

I did that too. Then the characters and storylines I enjoyed all disappeared in spite of the fact that I fought like hell for them. Now even I don't watch anymore and I gave up on the genre.

The last show I did talk up to somebody was Terminator. I haven't regretted that so far.