So, Snark posted a most fascinating comment from Brian D. Puckett on his website. (Even the link name is funny)

He labels the comment:

ONLINE OUTRAGE! WoSTBrian Slams Online Community

BREAKING NEWS: Poster Formerly Known as WoSTBRIAN Calls Daytime Pointless Exercise in Futility; Slams Online Community as Group of Historical Ignoramuses, Naive Pollyannas, and Shiftless Bastards!

Now, Snark is being deliciously provocative, but of course there is some truth here. Except, while I agree with WostBrian factually, I really feel like the anger he feels isn't necessary. For me, it hastens the pain of the death.

I posted this comment on Snark's blog (I don't know if he'll approve it), but it really is how I feel.

I find WostBrian to be factually right and emotionally wrong :-). On one of the sites he mentions (SON) I and others have recently posted ratings trends (since 1952) that support his thesis. The downward trajectory of soaps began in the 1950s, and you could predict we would get to this point, ratings wise, as early as the 1950s or 1960s. Social forces, like maternal employment, increased viewing options, social stigma about serial drama ("soap opera" was not meant as anything but a perjorative) that discourage new viewers...

I do not concur with Brian that the current creative problems have CAUSED the viewership decline. I find no strong statistical evidence of accelerated decline in recent years (although, I will acknowledge, there has been some acceleration...just not a lot). I believe that there is NO CREATIVE CHOICE THAT COULD HAVE BEEN MADE, of any time, that would have stopped us from getting to this place. A daytime drama is counter to the changing viewing patterns of Americans.

Again, I concur with Brian about recent quality declines. (Well, his thesis is they are not so recent). That is definitely happening, but I think that is symptom, not cause. As budgets get lower and lower and closer to the bone (an inevitability given the ratings decline trends that started in the 1950s), we see the consequence of that on screen. Now, there is no denying too that the taint of desperation--the scent of death--also is leading to some bad decision making. A poster at Usenet said something very clever recently: She said that the short term stints of headwriters and other creative types has led to a kind of existentialism. Because you doubt you'll be around next year, you write for NOW...for the current ratings spike...for what will save your job this month. That, of course, defies the logic of SERIAL drama, which requires setting up for the future.

So, again, I do not deny what Brian sees...but I dispute the causal structure of it. I think what we're seeing on screen today is effect, not cause.

Above, I also talked about the idea that Brian is "emotionally wrong". I'm teasing, kind of, but what I mean is this: All of us who loved WOST saw that Brian just kind of reached the end of his rope. If he was getting lots of complaints, I would have too! His labor of love was a love for all of us...I miss WOST every day. But my point is this: Brian's emotional response--the thing that helped him break free--was a "hardening of the heart". We all have coping strategies, and Brian needed to do his: The genre he loved was dead, some WOST users were emotionally toxic, and he had a more enjoyable life to get too.

That "hardened heart" shows up in this comment.

Again, I do not dispute what he says, but emotionally, I feel like this: Come, friends, let's enjoy these final days. We're down to embers, and they're growing dark. What we see now in no way reflects the bright fire we once enjoyed, but it's still throwing a little warmth. Let's enjoy it while it is there, and let's remember how gloriously it once burned. " If I accept the bitterness and the anger for myself, then I've already lost the genre I love.

Another analogy is the dying relative. Do you just say "She's basically dead already? I'm gonna turn my back?" Or do you sit by her side, stroke her forehead, and remember the better days? Either way, she's dying...nobody is disagreeing on that. For me, though, confronting it with gratitude and reverence makes the pain more tolerable. I don't direct my anger at today's creative types, because really, it doesn't matter. We would have come to this point no matter what. It could not be avoided.

I just felt Brian rolling his eyes :-).

Another analogy is the dying relative. Do you just say "She's basically dead already? I'm gonna turn my back?" Or do you sit by her side, stroke her forehead, and remember the better days?

Not if she's been a contemptible b*tch the past 15 years.

Hey Brian Man I miss Wost but gotta thank you and the site for exposing me at a yougn age to great soap moments I never dreamed I'd have a chance to see again.

ANYWAY--I actually agree with a lot of what yous ay. I guess my point was I don't see it as dire or drastic--if you read the soap press ever since the *80s* even, people, often the newer viewers have been told by older viewers that soaps are at death's door. My point was I've been hearing this so long it stops really having much meaning for me

Personally acting like the final nail is being drilled into the coffin of the genre isn't helping matters either. Spreading doom and gloom certainly isn't going to get people to watch, it will have the opposite effect IMO.

You want soaps to stay around? FIGHT FOR THEM.

My 2 cents

Personally acting like the final nail is being drilled into the coffin of the genre isn't helping matters either. Spreading doom and gloom certainly isn't going to get people to watch, it will have the opposite effect IMO.

You want soaps to stay around? FIGHT FOR THEM.

My 2 cents

I couldnt agree more.

Hey Brian Man I miss Wost but gotta thank you and the site for exposing me at a yougn age to great soap moments I never dreamed I'd have a chance to see again.

ANYWAY--I actually agree with a lot of what yous ay. I guess my point was I don't see it as dire or drastic--if you read the soap press ever since the *80s* even, people, often the newer viewers have been told by older viewers that soaps are at death's door. My point was I've been hearing this so long it stops really having much meaning for me

WEll not since the 80's. The 80's was the pinnacle of daytime - even more than the 70's. Ratings were still very high in the 80's and they were still a cultural phenomonom at the time.

The stars and the powers that be behind the soaps and the fans sadly all will play a part in what kills the soaps and are the clear reason soaps got into the shape they are today.

First off fans quit watching soaps for what they are about. No longer are fans devoted to the show but they are devoted for the most part to parts or elements of the show. Soaps are no longer about the characters - and fans have made the stars of the soaps the center and not the character. For years when soaps were striving many people didn't even know the stars name. It was very rare for a soap star to become a star - people knew the character and that was it. Soaps are a genre where it has to be about tthe characters.

There was no such thing as the "real" Greenlee that ABC bought into. Greenlee was a character - it had nothing to do with the actor that played them. But fans have created that. You would never in the glory days of soaps hear about the faux-Greenlee or the fake-Greenlee etc. Fans were first and foremost fans of the shows and the whole show and wanted what was best for it. And they were loyal to the show.

Don't even get me started on the powers that be - all the mistakes they have made. So many have made mistakes including Gloria Monty who was revolutionizing the genre but in the end created a youth phenomonom in daytime that changed daytime to the point that it ended up hurting daytime instead of helping. The thing that made it worse is every other soap producer and writer felt they had to copy GH and thus most shows became clones of GH and lost their identity. The only show that held on to it's original identity in all of this was Y&R because Bell didn't choose to follow the others - he remained the lone wolf. All the rest totally changed in the 80's and almost became different shows than what they were in the 70's - Days being the biggest culprit.

And the biggest thing that has killed daytime is stars and backstage personnel demanding bigger and bigger salaries. The stars have become stars and thus they can demand bigger salaries.

In the 70's, production costs were so low that the networks made enough in ad dollars from one day to pay for the show a whole week. The other 4 days were extra money they could pump back into the show and into primetime. Daytime TV magazine reported in 1975 that Days for instance cost $150,000 a week to produce. They made $100,000 plus each eppy in Advertising Dollars.

So the show cost $150,000 a week, but they made $500,000 plus in ad dollars for Days of Our Lives alone.

Stars and the producers and writers all wanted more of this money for themselves. And yes you can not blame them, but at the same time they have helped to create the big budget downfalls the shows are having today. Not only did we get bigger pay for actors, but the writing staffs got larger. Today the same hour long show that was produced in the 70's and the 80's with as few as 4 writers will not have up to 15 or 20 writers on staff. The shows are not better today and they are not longer. They don't even have as many characters to keep up with. Why does it take more writers? At the height of Days popularity in the mid to late 70's, William J. Bell wrote Days with a staff of about 6 as well as writing Y&R at the same time - again with a staff of about 6. He served as head writer for both shows. Most times the shows didn't even have 6 - 4 to 5 at the most I think. For instance the 1976 team only had Bell, Pat Falken Smith, and Margaret DePriest on staff. Bell served as HW of both shows. The show was an hour long at the time. And at the same time he along with Kay Alden wrote Y&R which was 30 minutes.

I can't find my figures right now. My site where I keep them is down for maitenance, but I was going to show how that Days cost $150,000 a week in 1975, but the early 2000's had gotten to over a million dollars a week to produce. Even with inflation figured in, it had well exceeded the norm in production costs growth. That is very definitely leading to the destruction of soaps. They cost more to produce now than they are making for the networks.

Well, geez, Eric... I'm not dead! Admittedly, I have very little interest in soaps these days but I catch up on what's going on every now and then. Once in a while, I'll try to catch random soaps to see if a particular show still sucks. They largely do, except for an occasional flicker of promise -- which is usually snuffed out by some clueless "suit" in short order. What has happened to Y&R SHOULD be enough to shake even the most insanely positive person... but, let's be honest, didn't we really see it coming when Bill Bell passed away? Then when his longtime associates were booted from the writing staff, it was only a matter of time...

I see there are those that disagree with the notion that soaps are dying. Well, that's fine... never give up hope I guess. But it's pretty clear the direction things are going. The vision of Brian Frons IS the future of soaps -- and that isn't a good one. What he is molding SoapNet into is a pretty good idea of what the genre will evolve into -- less soap and more of anything else that they think can get ratings. Of course, we know Frons and his "Legion of Doom" are wrong about it. Ratings will rise if you produce something people want to see... and what most want is for each soap to return to its roots and offer us compelling stories that are trademarks of each particular soap. Why is it so hard to understand that a soap can be contemporary and modern with progressive scripts from talented writers (not the hacks we routinely see today moving from one show to the next -- and what other industry can you get fired from so many jobs and STILL be hired on elsewhere???). Contemporary storytelling in the traditional format and presentation of the genre? Yes, it works.

I could rage on about it... but it is wasted breath because the industry isn't interested in what we all have to say. They really could care less about our opinions... and we're not the kind of people they invite to be part of their focus groups. Yes, friends, they really do hand-pick those people. How else could they justify maintaining course through a deadly field of icebergs? Executives find people of similar opinions, surround themselves with them, and feed off them so that they appear to know what they are doing and remain in control.

>>sigh<<

I have gone so far on here to give SPECIFIC PREDICTED DATES of soap cancellations :-). So I totally believe the old lady is on her last breath.

And then...a week like this happens on OLTL. And I see that there is still such hope, such life in the genre.

My hopes will undoubtedly be dashed a week from tomorrow, when Toups tells me the ratings fell or something.

And therein lies the rub....every time there IS positive growth, it is not rewarded.

And that makes my more fundamental point. These shows could be written BEAUTIFULLY...every show could be perfect...and I HONESTLY doubt the ratings would be much better than they are now. I think out-of-house-women in the daytime, too many viewing options (esp in primetime when Soapnet competes), disdain for the serial form (and especially for dinosaur shows that grandma used to watch...can't possibly be cool) ALL would have conspired to give soaps JUST ABOUT THE SAME ratings now, even if the soaps had never faltered creatively.

Despite that, the hopeful little boy in me is watching OLTL's ratings FERVENTLY. If it could trend up a little bit each week, then I'd feel like all is not lost.

So, I'm going to be very intent on those Thursday ratings for OLTL. Meanwhile, I'll be sobbing in the corner for my Y&R. How could they have done that to my show??? Tom Casiello's blog has made me SO angry! How could they put a woman in charge who allowed scripts be cobbled together in 24 hours?? Steam rising from my temples....

Great points, Steve and Mark! You guys always have some insightful posts.

Hey Brian Man I miss Wost but gotta thank you and the site for exposing me at a yougn age to great soap moments I never dreamed I'd have a chance to see again.

Awww, Eric... thanks for that. I gotta pass on thanks, then, to all those generous collectors who shared their material with us.

And I totally understand your thoughts about the overused, overhyped "daytime is dying" line. It HAS been uttered here or there frequently in the past many years. In fact, I do agree with most all comments here regarding where some of the blame can be pinned for the state of daytime today. Steve's point about overbearing fans embracing a single star, couple, or element of a specific show rather than the whole package is a key one. If we're to be honest about it, I would say for example, if Nuke fans extended their "love" to ATWT as a whole rather than campaigning solely for a single moment in that storyline to occur - or to obsess over a certain character/actor (TomHughesFan anyone?) - maybe a more general fan base could start to rebuild.

But there is another side to that point... and this side kind of alludes to what I was thinking about in my original post here at over at Snark's blog. Zendall Fan and Jack Payton feel that "acting like the final nail is being drilled into the coffin of the genre isn't helping matters either. Spreading doom and gloom certainly isn't going to get people to watch, it will have the opposite effect IMO."

Well then... give me something GOOD to watch! I'm not going to be dancing lightly about singing the praises of a show with crappy storylines, bad production values, and a rather pointless reason for existence (Uhhh, hello GL!) Nuke fans probably feel this way... why talk about anything other than Nuke when that couple is the freshest, most progressive storyline ON ATWT these days? Two sides to every point... I see both here.

But what ISN'T going to help the state of daytime right now is to blindly watch daily out of some misguided loyalty or adherence to longtime tradition. Though the "suits" aren't listening... we have to keep TELLING THEM what they're doing wrong and how they are destroying the genre. So, as it has become painfully clear that they have no interest in what we think or how we feel (since they OBVIOUSLY know so much better than we!), we have fought back the only way we can and with the only power left to us -- and that is to stop watching the crap.

Oh, I do hold out hope... I watched a bit of OLTL a couple of weeks ago and while it still isn't what it once was, I do see some improvement. Is it a great show? Hell no. Better than it has been in ages? YES. And I watched because it was. Wasn't good enough for me to set the recorder to catch it after work each day... but it's better. What keeps me from recording it? Track record... this is still the network of "Frons and Friends" and I can't help but think some bonehead decision awaits that will set back the progress again... Who here honestly believes Frons WON'T interfere in some way and mess it all up again???

Daytime has disappointed me one too many times... and that's why I don't have lots of positives to bring to the table. Sorry. I guess I'm just a bitchy jilted ex-lover who is nostalgic about how good it was and resentful that it is no longer that way. I'm such a bitch.

B

Edited June 4, 200817 yr by wostwebmaster

Mark H,

Part of what you are talking about in that last post - goes back to fans too.

In the glory days of soaps fans stuck around - they were loyal because they got rewarded for that loyalty. Loyalty is a two way street - so I don't blame the fans fully on that one. The soaps have not given them any reason to remain loyal today.

But at the same time there is a new breed of soap fan today. And it is not so much that they are busier or anything, because they do still have loyalty to primetime shows and other shows that they will not miss an episode.

But daytime fans come and go with the tides these days. They don't stick around for the day to day growth of characters and plot. They tend to watch when things get exciting and then tune right back out - which makes GH's and others sweep stunts work out great.

The producers have bought into this and that is why you have these sudden surges of energy at various points. And that is another reason I can't give the powers that be any breaks. If I knew for sure that the mundane haphazard stuff they give us on a daily basis was all that they were capable of I could give them the benefit of the doubt. But when these same hacks can pull out a week of great programming because they actually tried then I know they are capable of a whole lot more. The rest of the time they just don't make the effort. So why should I reward them for not giving it 100%. My time is more precious and more valuable than that. If they can't give me their best then why should I give them my best.

And as to the thing of the comment: "the disdain for the serial format"

That is not longer true either. Over half of primetime now is basically the serial format. People don't have a disdain for the format. Soap Opera is not dying as a genre it is alive and well breathing fully in primetime.

Daytime soap opera is what is dying.

WEll not since the 80's. The 80's was the pinnacle of daytime - even more than the 70's. Ratings were still very high in the 80's and they were still a cultural phenomonom at the time.

I stand by what I said. I've read a LOT of soap publications from all era and after the huge peaks of the early 80s rating wise people DID start VERY quickly predicting soaps were on the way out--I've read the Death of Soaps articles dated from as early as 1983 that's why it's hard not to think it's all exagerated.

(I do agree with nearly everything else you've said so well)

Edited June 5, 200817 yr by EricMontreal22

Personally acting like the final nail is being drilled into the coffin of the genre isn't helping matters either. Spreading doom and gloom certainly isn't going to get people to watch, it will have the opposite effect IMO.

You want soaps to stay around? FIGHT FOR THEM.

My 2 cents

I think that the point is a lot of people don't think they're worth fighting for anymore. Like Brian said above, many of us tried to fight. We wrote and called and campaigned and got nothing. So screw 'em. Let em die.

Edited June 5, 200817 yr by marceline

I think that the point is a lot of people don't think they're worth fighting for anymore. Like Brian said above, many of us tried to fight. We wrote and called and campaigned and got nothing. So screw 'em. Let em die.

i understand that, but IMHO to have that stance means you need to stop watching and shut up.

dont mean to be harsh, but its true.

i understand that, but IMHO to have that stance means you need to stop watching and shut up.

dont mean to be harsh, but its true.

I think it's perfectly appropriate for those who are sad and disappointed to express those feelings. By this logic, Jack, you are asking those of us who feel disappointed or disgusted with the current political climate in America to stop voting and shut up about it. Unless I've misunderstood your statement... If I have, please tell me...

B

I think it's perfectly appropriate for those who are sad and disappointed to express those feelings. By this logic, Jack, you are asking those of us who feel disappointed or disgusted with the current political climate in America to stop voting and shut up about it. Unless I've misunderstood your statement... If I have, please tell me...

B

Not at all. I'm saying that if its to the point where you do not enjoy it at all then why are you watching it? why are you dwelling on it? There is a lot more to life.

I understand being fed up and feeling like you cant take anymore, and even quitting watching and still posting, but when it comes to the point where its 100& negative and you feel like soaps ARE dead and there is no reason to watch then i just don't understand it.

The difference with the voting and what not is as long as you are active and you are voting and unhappy then by all means, but you cant note vote and then bitch. You made a choice to give up and IMHO just need to deal with it.

I guess i could never imagine being so angry and still going on and posting, i mean at some point doesn't it just get old? I feel i would move on and go to other message boards about things i like, but then again i try to post about things i like. Like when I'm not watching soaps i don't discuss them because obviously I'm unhappy.

I'm not saying no one has the right to be negative and get how they feel out there, by all means. You have every right to and i hope no one took it as me saying you don't.

But given the choice between venting about how soaps are dead and might as well be off the air and there no point anymore vs. discussing a new hookah flavor, or a vegas club, or a new drink mix, or a show i enjoy, its no choice for me.

i understand that, but IMHO to have that stance means you need to stop watching and shut up.

dont mean to be harsh, but its true.

"Stop watching" isn't exactly the best end game business model for TV shows.

Besides, if I (and Brian and Mark and all the other people who've offered opinions in this thread) shut up and stop watching, does that mean the genre will thrive? No.

Given that the internet is the tiniest fraction of the viewing audience, shutting up isn't really an issue and "stop watching" has been happening for years. That's kind of the point.