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Network ratings- rises and slides


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Digging into the available ratings archives, one can point to the years when networks had a particular surge or slide in their ratings. Very this was driven by one event or one soap, but often more than one soap were able to get their stuff together at the same time. However, there is strong evidence to suggest that the rise or fall in the fortunes of a particular soap has a knock-on effect on the network's entire Daytime lineup. So here goes:

MAJOR RISES

NBC's Golden Age, 1970s- up to the late 60s, CBS were completely and totally dominant in the field of soaps. However, as the 70s began, this would start changing and NBC was the first to make a serious dent into CBS supremacy with its lineup of Another World, Days of Our Lives and The Doctors. By the 1973-74 ratings season, Days and AW tied with ATWT for first place- and The Doctors were a very close 4th. This was also, arguably, the all-time high for soap viewership which went into what was in effect a gentle decline.

ABC's Surge, late 70s-early 80s- ABC enjoyed mixed fortunes in the 70s. By 1976, only All My Children was in the top half of the ratings chart whilst General Hospital (who had a few good ratings years earlier in the decade) and One Life To Live were struggling in the bottom half. This all changed with Gloria Monty and Douglas Marland at General Hospital, stabilising ratings. By 1979, AMC had reached the top whilst GH finished second- and in 1980 GH had reached the top, where they remained for the majority of the 1980s.

In the early 1980s, it was very evident that the rise of GH had an effect on the entire ABCD lineup- OLTL was enjoying new highs in the ratings, and Ryan's Hope was also doing well. Even the Edge of Night prolonged its existence by a few years. In fact, the week of Luke and Laura's wedding in 1981 showed that AMC, OLTL and RH all garnered very strong ratings and even EON rated above ALL NBC soaps that week! ABC's big three soaps remained there or thereabouts for the remainder of the 80s. But EON would be cancelled and A change in timeslot between Loving and Ryan's Hope in 1984 had the effect of virtually sealing RH's fate... whilst Loving enjoyed its best ratings years in 1984-86.

NBC Silver Age, 1980s- NBC was really in the gutter in the early 80s, which will be explained below. But by 1983 things were looking up even though picking up Search for Tomorrow had halved that show's ratings compared to what it got on CBS. Both Days of Our Lives and Another World saw their ratings make something of a miraculous recovery compared to their post-1980 lows. Santa Barbara saw their own ratings slowly climb and by 1987-88 that three-hour soap block was looking like NBC's strongest Daytime lineup since the Golden Age of the 70s. Unfortunately, that didn't last.

CBS on the other hand never really had such dramatic surges and slides, only the wavering fortunes of individual soaps (see below). Overall their lineup during Daytime's golden years was fairly steady bar the odd bad decision- e.g. the change of scheduling in 1972 saw Edge of Night's ratings take a dive, ditching Search for Tomorrow when it still had decent ratings. Capitol garnered reasonable enough ratings during its run, and B&B has the extreme fortune no other more recently-created soap had, by being sandwiched between Y&R and ATWT.

MAJOR SLIDES

NBC's Catastrophic Collapse, 1980

Partly because of the rise of ABCD but not entirely because of it, NBCD saw its ratings decline in the latter half of the 70s. Another World fell from its hitherto habitual top two in the charts but remained NBC's highest-rating soap- and contrary to popular belief, the short-lived 90-minute did not adversely affect its ratings either since they were declining before then.

So what exactly happened? In 1980 the following things happened: NBC for one was reeling from the Supertrain failure and the Olympics boycott. The "massacre" over at Days in which longtime stars were axed and a slew of new characters nobody cared about came on (only Gloria Loring as Liz Chandler had any staying power), causing the show's ratings to tank. Beverlee McKinsey left AW for its spin-off Texas (which also ended the 90-minute experiment), which also failed dismally but also caused AW to lose more viewers due to McKinsey leaving. Meanwhile, The Doctors changed timeslot once more, effectively killing it off. So all these events caused a catastrophic collapse in NBCD's ratings, and with the exception of the Silver Age they would never again have a truly competitive lineup compared to CBS or ABC.

ATWT and GL, 1995-97

The untimely death of Douglas Marland in 1993 was a blow to ATWT and Daytime generally. The show for the couple of years was written by Juliet Law Packer and Richard Backus, and then Richard Culliton. However, Caso remained in charge as EP and it can be said that everyone expected the show to come down a bit in this period and it did, but that period is generally not viewed negatively in retrospect considering what followed. Meanwhile Guiding Light under Jill Farren Phelps was reeling from the departures of Ellen Parker (Maureen) and Beverlee McKinsey (Alexandra)... however, take out those events (though very damaging to the show) and JFP's four-year tenure at GL was rather good in terms of quality.

In 1995, however, Proctor & Gamble made some stupid decisions that did a great deal of harm to all of its shows. JFP moved from GL to AW (Michael Laibson, whose five-year stint at AW with Donna Swajeski writing was well-regarded, took her place), and we all know what happened there. John Valente moved from AW replaced Laurence Caso at ATWT, and was repportedly bitter about the move as subsequent events would reveal. Of course, we all know what happened. The effects of the changes on all these shows was unspeakably bad. Especially on ATWT under the reign of terror of Valente, Black and Stern, making the show (according to one source) "the worst on TV" at the time. To see the decline of such great shows (as with anything else) in a remarkably short period is truly horrifying. But to the credit P&G, the realised what was going on and fired all those responsible, starting with Kenneth Fitts as executive in charge of production.

Even though all soap ratings were in steady decline (and the impact of the OJ trial is, as I see it, generally overstated), ATWT and GL suffered sharp drops in ratings during 1996, a slide which did not halt until about 1998.

ABC's Fall, 1998

ABCD's ratings in the 90s remained strong, though obviously not at the levels of the 1980s. AMC was already doing well when Megan McTavish became HW first time round in 1992, and was lucky Felicia Minei Behr was in charge. GH entered a new era with Wendy Riche as EP, and Claire Labine would become HW. Whilst OLTL had Michael Malone as its HW. In any case, all this changed in by middle of the decade. Malone left OLTL, Labine left GH, whilst Broderick took over at AMC and the show still garnered much acclaim under her before McTavish returned for a second stint. And JFP, having received stinging criticism for her actions at GL and AW, would become EP of OLTL.

By 1998, it was obvious that the changes at AMC and OLTL were having a negative impact. AMC had enjoyed a solid place in the upper echelon of the ratings charts for many, many years- starting in the 70s when it was often ABC's most consistent performer in that regard. There were substantial ratings losses for GH, AMC and OLTL during 1998 at a time when Y&R, B&B and Days were leading the ratings. AMC's ratings would sink to their lowest in years, and OLTL saw very poor numbers as well, and even GH would fall away from the above-mentioned top three. Meanwhile, ATWT and GL had seen their ratings stabilise and even climb that year.

So there you have it. I see these as the most significant rises and falls as far as I know. I'll also add that Days' rise in the 90s under JER doesn't really count in this, because it didn't have a clear knock-on effect on the rest of the NBCD lineup as Santa Barbara had already been killed off, Sunset Beach never really got off the ground, and AW didn't improve its numbers even though they were doing comfortably better than the worst-rated soaps.

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Didn't OLTL actually climb to the top of the ratings before GH did--however briefly in the late 70s (maybe only a few weeks according to the Soap Encyclopedia)? Around the Karen Wolek story?

What has always fascinated me is during OLTL's last true golden era--the Gottlieb/Griffith/Malone area the show was consistant 6th and 5th in the soap ratings--its lead in AMC being always 2nd, GH still doing well (and we won't mention poor Loving) seemed to play no part. But ABC seemed (rightly) happy with the awards and good press OLTL was getting regardless.

As for AMC it being up against DAYS in many markets affecte dit before 1998 I think--the reason FMB was fired was due to slumping ratings (and then by 98 or so when Mctavish was rehired was due to the continual slump--ironic as it prob had little to do with quality of material and things tumbled MUCH faster after). OLTL started to suffer worse by the time Griffith and Gottlieb left and Malone got lost in an intrigue storyline and then abruptly left (one thing abotu ABC in their early 90s era of really high quality soaps was it wasn't just good writers--it was great producers)

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No worries everyone. I think the whole point of history topics anyway is that the figures are out there, it's just the job of historians to explain how and why those figures came about. ;)

In all seriousness, we can argue that AMC suffered a much sharper ratings slide during McTavish's second spell- to the point that at one stage, it was below both ATWT and GL. Similarly, OLTL endured a dreadful period under JFP, who it's thought was even de facto HW at one stage. Back in 1998, Broderick had taken over at ATWT and while her tenure wasn't brilliant, it did stabilise ratings and represented a definite improvement on the miserable 1996-97 years. GL on the other hand were riding the wave of the clone storyline- never mind some astonishing performances that year and prior by Cynthia Watros.

ABCD's problem in more recent years has been Frons' totalitarian control over the shows. He seems to have an urge to control every aspect of ABC's soaps, creatively or otherwise which is normally the mark of a totalitarian. And just as totalitarians are marked by prejudice- be it nationality, class, race or religion- ageism and misogyny have been evident at ABCD. Phelps and McTavish also proved that even females can have misogynistic urges, judging by their decisions down the years. Just my observations.

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As a kid/teen I used to often get SOD (OK I lie, I used to get my twin sister to get it cuz I was too embarassed) and was so used to seeing AMC right there second to top. By 95-96 according ot Waggert's book it was suddenly 4th after Days and B&B, and then by the next year 5th. I was shocked lol (especially since by 97 it was still in really great shape)

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It'd be cool if we could find out about demo changes--i know all soap books from the 70s ac surprised that AMC had a remarkable high number of male watchers with 30%. I imagien that was parlty because from the early 70s (according to the Dan Wakefield 1976 book All Her Children) it was one of the first soaps to become a college dormitory phenomenon.

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The average household rating around 1990s was somewhere in the mid to high 5s, by the end of the decade it was approximately 4.0, and by now it's in the low 2s. Which proves the argument I've put forth for a long time that far more people have left Daytime this decade than any previous decade.

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The major movements by CBS were as follows:

1.Scheduling Change, 1972: The Edge of Night suffered due to the loss of its traditional timeslot, which attracted a particular demographic up to then. Its move to ABC three years later failed to halt that slide.

2.Love of Life: After The long-running Secret Storm was cancelled in 1974, Love of Life was left as the weak point among the long-running CBS soaps. However, in the years 1974-76, it enjoyed a brief resurgence in the ratings but this was also squandered.

3.Young and the Restless: Enjoyed a meteoric rise, from bottom at its debut to 9th by 1975 and 3rd by 1976, becoming a force from that point on, and expanding to 1 hour in 1980.

4.Search for Tomorrow, Capitol and Bold & the Beautiful: the demise of Love of Life in 1980 left CBS with just four soaps- ATWT, GL, Y&R and SFT- all of whom were on solid ratings ground even though they were being overshadowed by the meteoric rise of ABCD. Even though SFT was now the lowest-rated soap on CBS, it was still doing well and comfortably better than any NBC soap... so the genial idea of moving to NBC had the effect of halving its ratings. Part of the reason was that some NBC affiliates never picked up SFT, while many more dropped it after a while- similar to what happened with EON. Capitol never got SFT's numbers but its numbers were competitive throughout its run, which brings us to B&B which is the only soap created in the 1980s remaining on air.

The fact remains it was always difficult for newcomers to the soap genre from the 70s onwards to establish themselves. After AMC debuted in 1970 and Y&R in 1973, the next long-running show to debut was Ryan's Hope which like Y&R was bottom in its first season and really took off after a year. Lovers and Friends and For Richer, For Poorer failed abysmally for one. Texas, likewise, also failed but was not born in a climate that helped it. Neither Santa Barbara nor Loving sparkled in the ratings, but both did reasonably well to stay above "cancellation levels"- i.e. there were always a few soaps rating much much worse. That trend continued through the 80s and 90s- e.g. AW and even Port Charles were quite comfortably above Sunset Beach, and Port Charles was IIRC above Passions for a year or two.

So what enabled B&B to survive in such a tough genre to break through as Daytime soaps? The fact that it was a Bell creation might be cited as a factor, though some creations of other successful writers- Lemay with L&F/FRFP, Nixon and Marland with Loving- were not smash hits. It was more the fact that B&B had from the start an extremely favourable timeslot between two popular shows (Y&R was edging in on GH, ATWT undergoing its resurgence under Marland) that the show got lucky and were able to do well from the start. And it wasn't until the early 90s crossover that B&B's ratings really catapulted to the top 3.

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Interesting thread,thanx 4 posting...

Looking back at NBC's 73/74 success,a number of factors come into play.

Firstly the shows themselves.Days had Bill Bell at the helm,with the Doug/Julie,Bill/Laura/Mickey stories constanty evolving.

AW had Rauch/Lemay putting their stamp on the show.Iris had been introduced and Steve/Alice/Rachel were still strong.

DRS was slotted between these shows.I think the Pollocks were writing at the time.Mike/Toni,Steve/Carolee and Nick Althea were central.

The CBS moves of TEON,TGL.LIAMST etc must have changed viewer habits.

The schedule in those days was of course very different with shows at 30 min it wasn't always soaps on the 3 networks.

Here's how things looked around that time.

11.30

CBS Love of Life

NBC Hollywood Squares

ABC Brady Bunch

12.00

CBS Y&R

NBC Jeopardy(replaced by Jackpot in Jan 74)

ABC Password

12.30

CBS SFT

NBC Who What Where (replaced by Baffle in Jan 74)

ABC Split Second

1.00

CBS Local

NBC Local

ABC AMC

1.30

CBS ATWT

NBC 3 on a Match(replaced by Jeopardy in Jan 74)

ABC Let's Make a Deal

2.00

CBS TGL

NBC DOOL

ABC Newlywed Game

2.30

CBS TEON

NBC DRS

ABC Dating Game(replaced in July 73 by The Girl in My Life)

3.00

CBS The Price is Right

NBC AW

ABC GH

3.30

CBS Hollywood's Talking(replaced in July 73 by Match Game)

NBC RTPP (replaced in Jan 74 by HTSAM)

ABC OLTL

4.00

CBS SS(replaced in Feb 74 by Tattletales)

NBC Somerset

ABC Love American Style(replaced in May 74 by $10,000 Pyramid

Interesting to see that none of the shows following AW had nywhere the ratings success of the first 3 soaps on NBC's line up.

Also NBC made a lot of changes to gameshows in 74.I think ultimately it all failed and was the beginning of a decline at NBC daytime that hit hard in the late 80's.

Lin Bolen was the daytime head at NBC at the time and she was very controversial.I think the boards would have gone wild about her if we had internet then.

Does anyone have more info on her and her impact at NC daytime?

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NBCD's ratings remained competitive through the 70s but they were slipping towards the end of the decade- it was only 1980, for reasons mentioned at the start of the thread- that the big collapse happened, rather than the late 80s (by which time NBC had its best lineup since the 70s).

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She rationed ideas and story lines by doing the same thing.(27)     Phillips, herself, was a highly eccentric woman, possibly more than any of the thousands of characters she created during her career.She consulted fortune tellers from time to ti me and changed the spelling of her name from the original Erna to Irna when a numerologist said it would ease her life.(28)     She was also a hypochondriac. She visited doctors nearly every day of her life. A physician who lived in her apartment building in Chicago stopped by several times a day to listen to her complaints and take her temperature.(29) Her trips to New York City were often mixed in with trips to different hospitals and specialists in Manhattan. Once, while staying in her suite at the Carlyle Hotel in Manhattan, she insisted that storm windows be installed to end the drafts. The windows are still there.(30) Frequently, she asked to be pushed around in a wheelchair.(31)      Not surprisingly, Phillips's preoccupation with illness and disease became evident in her work. Doctors and nurse as characters, hospitals as settings, and illnesses as subjects for drama were vintage Phillips characteristics.(32) Phillips's treatment of actors who worked on her shows was rather odd as well. She seldom bothered to learn the names of the performers, knowing them only as the characters they portrayed.(33) Actress Helen Wagner, who has played Nancy Hughes (now McClowsky) on AS THE WORLD TURNS since it premiered in 1956, was a friend of Irna's and remembers just how typical that was, "I was always Nancy to her. Any reference to my husband always meant Chris, my on-screen husband, not my real-life husband. I never became 'Helen' until very late in her career, after knowing her many, many years."(34)     Similarly, Phillips did not like the off-screen lives of her actors to interfere with the on-screen lives of their characters. Helen Wagner, whose character of Nancy was in the early days something of a homebody, was for many years denied a vacation from the show because it would mean writing the character out for a few weeks. Phillips told Ms. Wagner, "Nancy is a housewife, Nancy does not travel." It was several years before Nancy was allowed to go visit a sister out of state so that actress Helen Wagner could have a few days off.(35)     Like her characters' lives and her plots, Phillips rigidly controlled her home life and went to great lengths to keep it simple. She lived far away from the network TV industry in her Chicago apartment. Until she was in her late thirties, Phillips shared a bedroom with her mother, and she never learned how to drive. Though her sponsor once gave her a 1940 Plymouth to celebrate ten years in radio (and Phillips named it Sheila), it is doubtful she ever drove it.(36) Even her weekly menus were preset: on Sunday there was leg of lamb; Monday, chicken; Tuesday, steak; Wednesday, meatloaf; Thursday, lamb chops; Friday, spaghetti; and Saturday, stew.(37)     Phillips seldom had anything to do with the press, which she believed (perhaps rightly) dismissed soap operas as second-class subculture, snickering at her success and her fans' loyalty. She permitted few interviews during her entire career.(38)     Also not surprising was Phillips's flair for melodrama. In 1960 interviewer Peter Wyden related the story of the day Phillips's son Tom arrived late to meet her: "She does not just become vaguely uneasy. Her concern is translated into imaginary but stark disaster - he's been run over, his body is lying at the curb, he is bleeding badly."(39) Irna Phillips labeled herself a compulsive worrier and believed she would never get an ulcer because she turned all her worries into scripts.(40) "I do quite a bit of projecting," ahe told an interviewer.(41)     To oversee her programs, Phillips moved in 1940 to New York City. After seeing the toll the war was influcting on the country in 1941, she fashioned the serial WOMEN ALONE to dramatize the plight of women left on the home front. Her experiences in New York also served as the model for yet another new drama, LONELY WOMEN, which had a short on-air lifespan beginning in 1942 before Phillips recycled an old title and the show became known as TODAY'S CHILDREN in 1943. After six  months, though, New York was not to Phillips's liking, and she soon returned to Chicago. A similar move to California in 1943 did not work out either, and she returned to Chicago after only nine months.(42)     With so many shows on the air at the same time, and wielding as much power as she did, Irna Phillips put forth a revolutionary idea for soap opera broadcasting in 1943. THE GENERAL MILLS HOUR, as she foresaw it, would consist of three ofher shows running back-to-back - each in different lengths, from fifteen to twenty minutes depending on the plot - with characters from each occasionally overlapping and interacting. A narrating voice-over would navigate proceedings. It endured for a few months until Phillips abandoned the concept.(43)     By 1943, only a little over ten years after she began, Phillips was single-handedly responsible for five different daily dramas. Her total income from them was $250,000, and her literary output was estimated at two million words per year, the equivalent of forty novels.(44) She had established such a factory by this time that she found it necessary to have a lawyer and two doctors on retainer just to act as consultants.(45)     It was only later that Phillips reached the need for support writers, or "dialoguers," who filled out the basic story lines she devised. Many young writers who began with Phillips went on to successes of their own. In 1946 she hired a young recently graduated writer named Agnes Eckhardt, who later married and changed her name to Agnes Nixon.(46) Nixon would go on to create ALL MY CHILDREN and LOVING. Phillips also had a longtime collaborator in writer William Bell. After cocreating ANOTHER WORLD with Phillips, he went on to found with his wife Lee Phillip Bell two of the most successful soaps of recent years, THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and, later, THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL.     Also in 1943, at near the same age her mother was when she herself was born, Phillips, unmarried and a career woman, adopted a child, Thomas Dirk. A year and a half later, Phillips adopted Katherine Louise.(47)     Throughout the 1940s Irna Phillips reigned as the undisputed queen of the radio soap opera. By the end of the decade a new medium was on the horizon and it would be that medium that Phillips (somewhat reluctantly) would conquer next.      By all accounts Irna Phillips was not anxious to move her shows from radio to television. With television, a fog horn could no longer substitute for the deck of a ship, and actors could no longer be brought in and replaced so easily. So reluctant was she to give up radio that after THE GUIDING LIGHT debuted on television on July 30, 1952, the scripts were rebroadcast that same day on radio. The two GUIDING LIGHTS ran concurrently on the two media for several years until finally the incredible success of the television version made the radio outlet obsolete.(48)     Around this time Proctor and Gamble [sic: My Note: This book spelled Procter and Gamble wrong over & over.], the soap manufacturer and a longtime force in soap opera broadcasting, began its long association with Phillips. Phillips sold the ownership of her current TV dramas to Proctor and Gamble Productions. Between the two of them (Phillips and P&G) they formed the biggest, toughest alliance daytime television had ever seen.(49)     In 1956 Phillips, in association with Proctor and Gamble, stormed onto television with what was to become her most popular (and some say, personal favorite) creation, AS THE WORLD TURNS. The continuing story of the Hughes and Lowell clans of Oakdale, Illinois, began on April 2, 1956, as TV's first half-hour soap. It was produced live until 1975 when it was lengthened to a hour. The show revolutionized daytime drama by gaining more viewers than ever before in the history of the genre (sometimes as high as a fifty percent share of the audience), and it launched soapdom's first all-out lying, scheming villainess, Lisa Miller (later, after marriage/s, Lisa Hughes, then Coleman, then Mitchell, then others). She was played by actress Eileen Fulton, who continues on the show to this day. Fulton's and the show's fame were so intense in the mid-1960s that CBS created a nighttime spin-off titled OUR PRIVATE WORLD. It, however, would only last a few  months.(50)     Irna Phillips's actual writing for her series, radio and television, was rather unusual. Every day at  nine in the morning Phillips sat down at a rickety, brown card table - the same one she had used for years - and began to devise that day's scripts from projected story lines often set down months in advance. From there she would dictate dialogue to her secretary and close friend, Rose Cooperman. "I really don't think I write," she said "I act."(51) Occasionally sitting still and occasionally moving around the room, moving as the character would, Phillips assumed all the characters in the scene - male, female, adult, child - changing her voice to indicate a change in speaker.(52) This process worked so well for Phillips it was later adopted by many of her proteges, including William Bell.(53)     As Phillips would talk, "Rosie," her secretary, would take down every word, following the various characters by following changes in Irna's voice and gestures. Rosie filled in the punctuation along the way. Both women became so involved with the story line they were creating that they found themselves in tears.(54)     The average time for Irna Phillips to dictate a half-hour script was about an hour and forty-five minutes. It usually took longer to type the finished manuscript than it did for Phillips to dream it up.(55) During Phillips's "writing" she seldom lost her place or became confused.  If she did, she could always consult one of her various genealogical charts she created for each show. They consisted of squares containing characters' names with solid lines connecting relatives, dotted lines connecting in-laws, and "X"'s over names of dead or missing family members.(56)     After the writing was finished Phillips would sit down and watch not only her shows but those of her competitors as well. While viewing her own shows, if she found something she did not like in script, performance, or production, it was switched immediately. This often meant a phone call to New York and a list of demands. A few times actors found themselves jobless after a phone call from Phillips. Not surprisingly, many actors, writers, and crew members feared Phillips's wrath. Once, when an actor playing what many thought an indispensable character asked for a raise in salary, Phillips refused and solved the whole problem by simply killing off the character. The show went on without him.(57) Don Hastings, who has played Dr. Bob Hughes on AS THE WORLD TURNS since 1960 (and wrote for the show for many years under the name J.J. Mathews), remembers Phillips as a tough but fair mother lion, ferocious in protecting her creation: "She was very tough on her writers but would protect them if the network or the producers criticized them. She always said that if she okayed a script it was as good as her writing it herself."(58)     Though Irna Phillips could be difficult, and a great many lived in constant fear of her, nobody would deny her skill. Don Hastings remembers a time when AS THE WORLD TURNS ratings had slipped. Owners Proctor and Gamble asked Phillips - then at work on another Proctor and Gamble show - to return and help WORLD. "Can you bring us up to a thirty share by the end of the year?" they asked. Phillips delivered the thirty share in thirteen weeks.(59)     Additionally, Phillips was not as difficult on a personal level as she might first appear. Throughout her career she was instrumental in starting other writers in their careers. Agnes Nixon, Bill Bell, and many other names benefitted from her support and guidance. Phillips was also known to take many young actors under her wing, sheltering and encouraging them.     In her life in Chicago, Phillips had a small but tight-knit group of friends and a fiercely devoted household staff. They admired and respected her enough to overlook her dramatic nature and her many pseudo-illnesses. Producer Lee Bell, who with her husband Bill created THE YOUNG AND THE RESTLESS and THE BOLD AND THE BEAUTIFUL, was a friend and coworker of Irna's for many years; she remembers an eccentric but likable person. "She was a genius," Bell said, "A brilliant, intelligent woman. You wanted to be around her. Whatever eccentricities [she had] didn't matter."(60)      In 1964 Phillips formulated a new series for NBC titled ANOTHER WORLD. The title referred to the separate "psychological worlds" of its characters and the two separate economic worlds of the show's two major families. Not accidently, it also drew comparison with the previous Phillips creation AS THE WORLD TURNS.(61)     ANOTHER WORLD was the first daytime soap to run one hour. It was also the first daytime show to address the topic of abortion.(62) Phillips invited controversy again in 1967 when she attempted to introduce an interracial story line into LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, a show she was also writing at the time. When the network bosses balked at the idea, Phillips walked out. She abandoned the show, and it was canceled in 1973.(63)     Despite Phillips forward thinking, however, she did not always approve of the direction daytime shows were taking. She said in 1972: "The daytime serial is destroying itself, eating itself up with rape, abortion, illegitimacy, men falling in love with other men's wives, all of which is often topped by a murder, followed by a long, drawn-out murder trial.(64)     In 1964 ABC-TV put Irna Phillips, at age 63, on the payroll as a special consultant for its primetime soaper PEYTON PLACE, the serialized twice-weekly program based on the book by Grace Metalious. By taking the PEYTON PLACE job, Phillips achieved a rare triple play: she now had her hand in, and was receiving paychecks from, shows running on all three major networks.(65)     In 1965 Phillips cocreated DAYS OF OUR LIVES and composed what has since become arguably the most famous opening line for any show in television's history: "Like sands through the hour glass ..."(66)     All did not always flow smoothly, however. The early years of ANOTHER WORLD were filled with complications: major characters were thrown out with little explanation, and actors were replacedal,ost weekly. Frustrated, Phillips left ANOTHER WORLD to concentrate on a show for ABC that she was cocreating with her daughter (and was based on Irna's own life). That show would only air for a few months when it premiered. Agnes Nixon was later brought into ANOTHER WORLD as head writer to whip the show into shape.(67)     Since Irna Phillips had almost single-handedly created soap operas as a dramatic form years ago in radio, they had begun to change. The incedible success of her own AS THE WORLD TURNS made daytime soap operas an important, highly profitable part of the network schedule. To gain viewers and therefore money, soaps became more and more sensational. Gradually they became more scandalous, sexual, and action-oriented; Irna Phillips's stories of women sitting around the breakfast table were becoming passe. Phillips found herself being left behind by the genre she had created. Allen Potter, who worked on ANOTHER WORLD with Phillips during its difficult years, summed up the problem: "She was from a different era. [She was] still writing kids going down to the malt shop."(68)     Phillips was asked to rejoin AS THE WORLD TURNS in 1972.(69) She simplified some of the plots but failed to turn the recent ratings dip around. Proctor and Gamble, the show's producer, fired Phillips in 1973. Back in Chicago she began work on an autobiography, but nothing was ever published.(70)     On December 23, 1973, Irna Phillips died in her sleep at her home in Chicago. She was seventy-two. In accordance with her wishes news of her death was kept from the press for several weeks.(71)     What made Phillips a success - the Queen of the Soaps, as she was often called - is somewhat difficult to answer. Helen Wagner recently explained it this way: "We [AS THE WORLD TURNS] premiered the same day as EDGE OF NIGHT [a now defunct mystery-based soap on ABC]. What was important on that show was the story. For AS THE WORLD TURNS what was important was the character.(72) Phillips realized early in her career that the success of serialized stories depended on her audience becoming involved and knowledgeable about the characters on the show. She told BROADCASTING in 1972: "Characters have to be multidimensional. The story has to come from the characters, to the point where your viewers will get to know a character so well they can predict his or her behavior in a given dramatic situation."(73)     Phillips believes there were several reasons for her success, not the least of which was her self-described limited vocabulary ("my greatest asset"), which, she believed, made her programs universal. She also attempted in her writing to appeal to the basic instincts of self-preservation, sex, and family.(74)     Perhaps Phillips's greatest personal achievement, however, was creating a world. fully and believably, that she did not really know herself. Though she never married; nor did she give birth; nor did she ever own a  home. But somehow Irna Phillips knew enough about all those qualities to entertain millions for generations - to spin endlessly involving tales of day-to-day life; tales about the simple joys and daily dramas of paying the bills, raising children, belonging to a family, and falling in love.      Irna Phillips wrote in McCALL'S magazine in 1965, "None of us is different, except in degree. None of us is a stranger to success and failure, life and death, the need to be lovedthe struggle to communicate..."(75)     Four of the programs Irna Phillips created - AS THE WORLD TURNS, GUIDING LIGHT, DAYS OF OUR LIVES, and ANOTHER WORLD - are still on the air today.  IRNA PHILLIPS July 1, 1901        Born in Chicago, Illinois 1922             Graduated with bachelor's degree in education. 1924             Graduated with master's degree in speech; began career teaching school in Missouri and, later, Ohio. May 1930        Returned to Chicago; joined WGN as actress and ad hoc writer.  October 20, 1930    PAINTED DREAMS, radio's first "soap opera" debuted;created by Irna Phillips.  June 16, 1932        TODAY'S CHILDREN, second Phillips creation, premiered; departed WGN. 1934            MASQUERADE premiered.  1935            MASQUERADE aired last broadcast. January 25, 1937     THE GUIDING LIGHT premiered.  1938            TODAY'S CHILDREN aired final broadcast; ROAD OF LIFE and WOMAN IN WHITE premiered. October 16, 1939    THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS premiered.  1940            Phillips moved briefly to New York City; would return to Chicago after six months.  1941            WOMEN ALONE premiered; settled court suit with WGN.  June 29, 1942        LONELY WOMEN (title later changed to TODAY'S CHILDREN) premiered.  1943            Resided briefly in Los Angeles; adopted son, Thomas Dirk. 1944            Adopted daughter, Katherine.  Summer 1948        WOMAN IN WHITE aired last broadcast. October 11, 1948    THE BRIGHTER DAY premiered on radio.  January 31, 1949    THESE ARE MY CHILDREN premiered. March 4, 1949        THESE ARE MY CHILDREN ended. 1950            Second incarnation of TODAY'S CHILDREN ended on radio. June 30, 1952        THE GUIDING LIGHT debuted on television. 1956            BRIGHTER DAY ended  on radio. January 4, 1954        THE BRIGHTER DAY premiered on television.  December 13, 1954    ROAD OF LIFE premiered on television; show ended broadcasts on radio. July 1, 1955        ROAD OF LIFE aired last broadcast on television. April 2, 1956        AS THE WORLD TURNS premiered. November 25, 1960    THE RIGHT TO HAPPINESS ended on radio. May 4, 1964        ANOTHER WORLD premiered.  1964            Worked as consultant on primetime's PEYTON PLACE. May 5, 1965        OUR PRIVATE WORLD, AS THE WORLD TURNS spin-off, premiered in primetime. September 10, 1965    OUR PRIVATE WORLD aired last episode. September 28, 1965    THE BRIGHTER DAY aired last broadcast on TV. November 8, 1965    DAYS OF OUR LIVES premiered. September 18, 1967    LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING, soap opera, premiered.  March 23, 1973        LOVE IS A MANY SPLENDORED THING aired last broadcast. Late 1973        Fired by Proctor and Gamble.  December 23, 1974    Passed away at home in Chicago.  NOTES 1.    "The Creators," TV GUIDE (Commemorative Edition) (July 1991), p.59. 2.    Dan Wakefield, ALL HER CHILDDREN (New York: Doubleday, 1976), p.27.  3.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY (1943), p.590. 4.    Irna Phillips, "Every Woman's Life Is a Soap Opera," Mccall's (March 1965), p.116 5.    Ibid. 6.    Peter Wyden, "Madam Soap Opera," SATURDAY EVENING POST (25 June 1960), p.129. 7.    Barbara Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, NOTABLE AMERICAN WOMEN: THE MODERN PERIOD (Cambridge: Belknap, 1980), p.542. 8.     "Script Queen," TIME (10 June 1940), p.66. 9.    Sicherman and Carol Hurd Green, p.542. 10.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends With Tradition," BROADCASTING (6 November 1972), p.75 11.     Madeline Edmundson and David Rounds, THE SOAPS (New York: Stein & Day, 1973), p.43.     12.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590 13.    Sicherman and Green, p.542. 14.    Robert C. Allen, SPEAKING OF SOAPS (CHapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina, 1985), p.111.  15.     "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends With Tradition," p.75. 16.     Edmundson and Rounds, p.44. 17.     Allen, p.112. 18.     Wyden, p.130. 19.     Ibid. 20.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590. 21.     "Queen of the Soaps," NEWSWEEK (11 May 1964), p.66. 22.    Sicherman and Green, p.543. 23.     Wyden, p.130. 24.    Sicherman and Green, p.259. 25.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.519. 26.     "With Significance," TIME (11 June 1945), p.46. 27.     CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.590. 28.    Wyden, p.129. 29.    Interview with Lee Bell (4 September 1991). All other information and quotes from Mrs. Bell in this chapter were taken from this interview. 30.    Interview with Don Hastings (5 December 1991). All other information and quotes from Mr. Hastings in this chapter were taken from this interview.  31.    Wyden, p.129. 32.    Robert LaGuardia, SOAP WORLD (New York: Arbor House, 1983), p.20. 33.    Wyden, p.129 34.    Interview with Helen Wagner (10 October 1991). All other information and quotes from Ms. Wagner in this chapter were taken from this interview. 35.     Ibid., p.130. 36.    "Script Queen," p.66. 37.    Wyden, p.127. 38.     Wagner interview. 39.    Wyden, p.127. 40.    Phillips, p.117. 41.    Wyden, p.127. 42.    Ibid., p.130. 43.    Ibid. 44.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, P.591. 45.    "Script Queen,"p.68. 46.    Wakefield, p.28. 47.    Sicherman and Green, p.543. 48.    Wyden, p.130.  49.    Ibid. 50.    Tim Brooks and Earle Marsh, THE COMPLETE DIRECTORY TO PRIME TIME NETWORK TV SHOWS(New York: Ballantine, 1981), p.571. 51.    Wyden, p.129. 52.    Phillips, p.168. 53.    Bell interview. 54.    Wyden, p.30. 55.    Ibid. 56.    Phillips, p.168. 57.    CURRENT BIOGRAPHY, p.591. 58.    Hastings interview. 59.    Ibid. 60.    Bell interview. 61.    LaGuardia, p.81. 62.    Ibid. 63.     Jean Rouverol, WRITING FOR THE SOAPS (Cincinnati, OH: Writer's Digest Books,1984), p.11. 64.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends with Tradition," p.75. 65.    "Queen of the Soaps," NEWSWEEK (11 May 1964), p.66. 66.    Rouverol, p.11. 67.     La Guardia, p.81. 68.     Ibid. 69.    "Week's Headliners," BROADCASTING (17 January 1972), p.9. 70.    LaGuardia, p.81. 71.    Landry, p.71. 72.    Wagner interview. 73.    "Writing On: Irna Phillips Mends with Tradition," p.75. 74.    Sicherman and Green, p.542. 75.    Phillips, p.116.
    • So, Roman admitted that everything he did was to protect Johnny. I like that. It adds another dynamic to this storyline. And it’s also a much better use of the character of Roman. He’s been stuck in the Pub for too long lol I’m also really liking the way that Roman and Kate’s relationship has been written lately. As for Josh Taylor’s voice… no comment

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      And speaking of relationships, I’ve also been seeing improvements in the relationships between Johnny and Paulina as well. I enjoyed their scenes today. They really feel more like an actual mother in law and son in law. I’m cringing a little at the way that Paulina would’ve been written had Ron stayed on a little longer. This type of writing is the exact thing that the character of Paulina needed, especially for a storyline like this.  I am a little intrigued with the idea of EJ and Xander going head to head over buying the hospital too, mostly because of how it could drive other storylines, couples, etc.,like EJ and Belle. Him basically using Belle as his own personal fixer, both with Johnny and the hospital board could lead to something interesting happening in the future. And Philip, doing whatever he can in order to get back in Xander’s good graces is a good addition to this storyline as well.  Btw, I don’t dislike it at all but I still can’t believe that they’re 

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      And yeah, sorry, I know that Days means well but I think they’re making a little too much out of this Xander/Felicity thing. But Xander and Sarah were sweet today. I’m looking forward to seeing everything between them get blown to hell.  Seriously, one of the worst, if not the worst, team in soap history. 
    • Thanks for letting me know! I thought there was a preemption until CBS confused me by uploading Monday's episode on Friday.
    • Lucky Day is an awfully good Doctor-lite episode focused on Millie Gibson and Jemma Redgrave - I am glad the show brought in Varada Sethu who continues to give major Caroline John/Liz Shaw vibes, but Millie was always very good in what felt designed to be a single arc companion and she's very good here too. She deserves a bit more somewhere in the franchise. The depressingly relevant storyline aside, I was most impressed by the showcase for UNIT and Kate Stewart. Jemma is always good but she was amazing here, noting the Doctor would've stopped her from going all the way re: Think Tank if he were there. Yet it's the kind of brute force her father could and did resort to in extreme situations back in the day. I almost hoped she would allow Conrad to be killed right then and there, which is something I think the Brigadier also would've done when backed against a wall over operational control and the safety of the Earth. She came very close, and the steel Redgrave exhibited (as always) was amazing. Whatever spinoffs can still materialize given the current streaming climate and DW's uncertain future (I do think it will continue somewhere, but I would not be shocked if it's back to a run of holiday specials for awhile a la Tennant's and Whittaker's), aside from the upcoming odd Sea Devils miniseries that's in the can, I still hope UNIT and Kate can get a proper one sometime.
    • I think it was just him  And it gave good explanations as to why Alistair was the way that he was. By the time the series ended, he was just evil for evil’s sake 
    • To me, that made no difference. The point stands whether Eva wants to be a Dupree or not. Anita was 110% on top of things. Also it's a logical inference that Eva might be interested in having a place in her supposedly real family. Frankly though I wonder if Eva knows how to feel ... yet. She could really be confused.
    • Does Jack ever dress in drag during that early '00s period where he was trying to get Jennifer back...or does he just fake being gay around then?
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