Times when cancellation is the best option

[EastMA2]

I've watched GL for over 35 years and have many tapes, books and synposes of the show from before I was born. After seeing the MESS that Wheeler has made of the show, I firmly believe the show should go off the air pronto. What we see today is not GL. Bert Bauer the character and Charita Bauer the actress would be mortified at what the show has become.

Woo hoo - Wheeler's ingenious idea of the current production model may have saved the show from cancellation because it was supposed to be cheaper to produce - but the show is such a shell of its former self that I now prefer that she had used what little money she had left to wrap the show up with some dignity. We all know that GL will go off the air next year for good. They'll never get a renewal beyond 2009, but no one will care because ratings will be at a zero. GL should have been cancelled instead of being allowed to turn into the disaster it is now.

[DavidEvanSmith]

Wow, the age-old question...................... let it die and remember it fondly, or let it live and become an unrecognizeable shell of what we loved in the first place?

I think it's a show-by-show basis. And what it really boils down to is how much faith do we have in the industry and in each of these shows?

I think it's safe to say that Guiding Light is never going to challenge Y&R in the ratings, or even AMC or OLTL for that matter. Do we legitimately think that it will ever NOT be the lowest rated soap again? But if it's canceled, then there's a new lowest rated soap that will never crawl out of the basement, and that's a slippery slope as well. If three soaps are canceled, then OLTL is at the bottom of the ladder, then isn't that spelling the end for OLTL next? Where will it end? When you really think about it, the only reason ratings are tracked is to escape cancellation, right? Proving one show is more viable than its competitor. Without one soap below you in the ratings, you suddenly look like the weakest link.

Deciding a soap is ready for cancellation, IMO, is deciding that there is no hope for this soap to grow an audience. I think ABC might be the strongest network right now, because AMC and OLTL seem to be neck and neck all the time, and GH seems to be slipping into their territory on a more consistent basis. As long as one is not more consistently above the other two, ABC is still in the game. Days has no other competitors on its own network, so it's in a precarious spot because it can't say "well at least we're doing better than Passions" anymore. CBS is tough because it has Y&R and B&B consistently at the top, but GL consistently at the bottom, and ATWT somewhere in that mix.

We all know what a poor spot GL is in, financially and creatively, and I personally do think it might be time to turn out "the light".

From my latest SOD ratings race:

Y&R - 3.3

B&B - 2.6

AMC - 2.0

GH - 2.0

OLTL - 2.0

ATWT - 1.8

DAYS - 1.8

GL - 1.5

That's pretty telling, right there. How far is GL from 0.9 rating? 0.6? I'd say they're the loss of one more major star away from it. If GL doesn't have a budget to sustain itself, rather than cutting production costs, shave the cast to half. Get to the core of it. Go back to a half hour! I personally couldn't imagine being able to sit through an HOUR of Guiding Light. I've tried. But it's painful and doesn't even appear to be scripted anymore, it appears to be entirely improvised, and that is the scariest part for me. Might as well fire the writing staff and let the actors wing it! Imagine the fun things the actors would come up with for their own characters! Go down in a blaze of glory, GL!

But seriously, though. Once GL goes, it will be only a matter of time for Days. Then ATWT will be at the bottom of the rung. Without Martha Byrne that's a scary place for THEM to be. I am happy to see that AMC, OLTL, and GH are all even with each other. If they stay even, the network has no weak link!

[DaysFanatic777]

Good point. The show must end, just as well as go on. Nothing last forever.

Reilly's first Days version was memorable and did make Days "The It Soap" in the mid 90's for the most important demographic. The show stayed at #2 in total, and #1 in 18-49....Now look at it...sad. I hated what Reilly did, but I'm torn about it. To be honest, it created this mess we now see, but he pulled the show out of it's apathetic stupor.

I hope when Days is cancelled, we have have a good behind-the-scenes staff to create a brilliant ending to this fantastic show. As it is right now, we wouldn't have the ending Days would deserve for over 40 years of great drama. This show, no matter what you think about it, has had one of the most ravenous fanbases in the history of television, and is one of the most recognizable soaps on air. It deserves more than a gentle fade into an internet domain, it deserves the works going out, and like you, I'm afraid that we Days fans won't be satisfied with the shows ending.

GL is one of my favorite soaps I haven't watched in a while. The early 90's were incredible, and some of the best drama I have ever seen (primetime included). Now, I don't even recognize it.

I wish for no soap to be cancelled. But like it or not, by 2010, GL, Days and probably ATWT, will be gone. Plain and simple.

[Sylph]

This is, like, the millionth topic discussing the same thing, and 2 conclusions keep reappearing:

1. Networks would have already cancelled the soaps had they found a successful business model to replace them. This how they probably still generate money, albeit a lot less than they used to.

2. If you are very close to not-watching your soap, just do it. Don't record it, don't watch the re-run on SoapNet, don't watch it "live". And once you decide not to watch, stick to your decision and don't complain to other fans (about the decision and about how bad the show was and you had to stop following it).

[Loretta3938]

Daytime used to support nighttime. Now soaps make a lot less and are having trouble staying out of the red themselves. Yet, no matter how small, they still attract an audience. It's less than it was in the 90's...and early 2000's...but there is still an audience for each of these soaps. Right now, NBC is having trouble staying in the black with their primetime shows. Only one episode of Dateline made the top 20 last week. They've pretty much lost the number three primetime spot to Fox in recent years. Will canceling their only daytime soap help that struggle? Only if they can find something that draws a larger audience to replace it. Personally, I think that canceling days will continue to erode their primetime audience. I make a lot of my decisions on what to watch in the evening while I'm watching Days each day. My dial is more inclined to find its way to NBC during primetime that way. Once Days is gone, my interest in NBC Daytime is gone, and NBC won't have this viewer to plug their primetime specials to. Personally, I think taking Passions off NBC hurt them, and I think AW started this downhill roll. I just think primetime will suffer for the wrong decisions they make on daytime. JMO, of course.

[Kstaff]

It's not that way with everyone. I honestly don't like most of primetime or if I do, it's cable. I use the TV guide on my cable to find what I want to watch. NBC primetime is suffering because it's CRAP. I'll wager people find their favorites and stick with them, and when their favorite isn't on, they channel surf. Or, like I mentioned, use the guide. When I'm home during the day, I'm not usually watching TV. I choose to watch my recordings when it's convenient for me.

Primetime is already suffering because CABLE can come up with these neat innovative things that the FCC won't let networks do. Plus, reality TV is cheaper to do than filmed TV, and cable networks apparently have deeper pockets than regular networks. I don't think it has anything to do with daytime, because seriously, i wonder how many people watch live?

And Sylph, I know you like to be a devil's advocate of sorts, but I'll decide when I fully quit watching, thank you very much. Just my two cents' worth. It won't matter to the ratings anyway cause I have cable DVR, not Tivo, and cable DVR isn't recorded by the Nielsons like Tivo is. And watching a poor episode of Days is still better than watching Who's Dating My Mom or some such hell as that.

[DaysFanatic777]

That was a wonderful post really. It's a great opinion on what is an excellent genre. Soaps have made millions for advertisers, and launched the careers of several mainstream stars. Some stars (Lucci, Hall, and Zimmer) defined soaps, and are stars because of the genre itself. The "Diva" is a term implicit with daytime. Daytime created the diva.

The thing we have to grasp is on a pro-soaps internet discussion site, we are getting honest opinions that soaps are no longer viable, and that two soaps, one the longest running (GL), and one argueably the most celebrated (Days), need to go ahead and be put of of their collected misery.

GL is an institution. It started this genre and thrived when it changed. It started out based around a church, and by the time I started watching faithfully, We had Reva dancing in a fountain in front of a paralyzed Josh. At the time, GH post Luke and Laura had lost my interest, and GL became a daily addiction. GL's brilliance was it's ability tro mold itself into new forms, while keeping the Bauers a central part of the canvas. NOW, we have a point where it changed, and it wasn't a good thing. O for the Days of Roger/Alex/Mindy, or Jenna/Roger/Holly, or David and Kat. Then the whole show went to San Cristobal, and thats when I tuned out. Now, the new production model is horrible. It seemed to erase what was left of this most excellent daytime staple, and did it in. The new model made those of us hanging on to hope of a revived and renewed GL give up. The scenes lack power, and GL is a soap that thrived, THRIVED on the power of a telling scene. It was those BIG GL moments that made us fans feel like it was all worth it. That the invesment paid dividends. The new model took that away.

Days, well I Love Days. I guess my screen name says that.

Elsa, you are right, Days had some great moments recently, and IMHO, was the best soap on the air the last half of 2007. The emotional complexity was deep, and every line revealed an inner layer of the characters. Hogan started awful, but ended equally good. So we now know that Days, as an institution, can come back and be the Salem we loved and knew before it was hatcheted to death by bad production values, and sloppy, slow writing. However, will Corday ever let it completely come back and resurge. The man has an uncanny knack for destroying creativity once it starts. Look and Brash and Cwigly. They had made Days a great soap again when he let Dena loose on it before. And, love him or hate him, Hogan had pieced Salem back together again only for Corday to let Dena dessimate it this time (cooky villians we don't know, hokey characters we know nothing about, poorly written dialouge and love triangles that have no reason). Dena refuses to write for characters we are invested in, and she fails to develop new characters. She wants to write for her own characters, but she spends no time in letting us get to know them.

So GL and Days, although both in the same boat, are totally different cases, but not that dis-similar. GL has failed at maintaining it's easiness on change, and at keeping the show grounded as it changes. Days has failed to capitolize on periods of renewal, and finds itself on the brink because of poor judgement. Both could have been better right now, but both will probably be cancelled.

Yes, the genre is dying, and yes, two soaps have to be on the bottom. We have to have two lowest rated soaps, as well as a highest rated one. BUT, there is no reason why Days and GL should be the two worst. Both have had chances, but both have given their collected chances away.

[Kstaff]

This needs to be framed.

[Cheyenne]

I will never ever wish cancellation on DAYS, especially now. I don't watch GL so I really don't have an opinion on that one. But DAYS, no way.

[DaytimeFan]

I'm not a fan of cancellation, it's weakens the genre as a whole.

That being said. In retrospect, the ending of my beloved AW in '99 was a blessing in disguise. I remember AW so fondly, it never had to stoop. It never became GL. It never endured the vet slaughter that other shows have undergone.

[TC]

I understand and appreciate what you are saying, but I also find it a little heavy-handed and selfish, the latter part. We are all at different places in this. Some of us are not here every single day to see every single one of those million topics you mention on this same subject. Some of us ignore it for a time and only come to recognize the crisis now. Some of us come back and forth to it. Many of us are constantly aware of it and still need to talk about it.

And never mind all of that. This is an ongoing process and I can guarantee you the next 5 years will not be pretty. Expect a lot more threads like this. People who have never spoken up before will be wailing at whatever network wall, here and everywhere else. Get used to it.

You're going to have to buck up. It's only going to get worse. Perhaps you should avoid threads of this nature.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

I think GL is ripe for the ax and has been for some time. The final nail in the coffin was the new production format, along with the nonexistent writing. Soap execs should wake up and realize that when you start losing viewers to the extent GL has since its format change, you're probably not getting them back. You've screwed the fans one too many times. I think that's how a lot of GL viewers feel. I'd much rather watch the Light go out when the show still had some dignity than have it continue in its present form. That's just my opinion, from someone who's watched the show for decades, and can remember when Gl was must-see soap viewing. It's hardly watchable now.