June 30 - July 4, 2008

[MarkH]

I'll bet Lauper got HUGE hits on YouTube.

That's my point...downloads have killed the TV ratings. There are two ways to handle it: abandon TV or find a way to profit from the Youtube/download market.

[MarkH]

Every point in this post is excellent! But it also leads to an interesting other point:

(A) It used to be that soaps had enough of a "reserve" audience that things like the Olympics or Wimbledon or Tiger Woods didn't hurt the soaps much. Oh, you might have lost a .2 or a .3...but it didn't matter because your rating was high enough that a short term reduction that small didn't matter much. Now, with so many of these shows close to the bottom, a loss of .2 or .3 represents a SIGNIFICANT residual share of the audience.

Thus, what you are talking about is ONLY a problem because the soap viewer base is so small already, a competing "event" can kill it.

( I think this also illustrates the audience change.

It used to be that soaps were programmed for the stay at home housewife. And, stereotypically (I think there is some truth in this) she WASN'T INTERESTED in those sports events.

Now, though, EVEN IF the core audience remains housewives (Is this true???), post-feminism she is more likely to be interested in golf and tennis and Olympics.

The soap viewer has changed, but soaps haven't really caught up with that.

[Sylph]

The death of this genre is so evident - one is left speechless. They have really reached a point of no return.

The sad thing is that this will mean people like Jean Passanante and Christopher Goutman will lead these shows until their very end. Meaning - they won't have a decent funeral someone like Claire Labine might have given them.

[SteveFrame]

Mark H,

I am not so sure that the daytime TV viewer has really changed all that much.

Look at some of the syndicated shows that do good - Judge Judy, etc.

They are basically what soaps used to be about. They are full of family drama and angst and feature real people across a wide range of age brackets, races, etc.

Sure they are not setting the world on fire with ratings, but it proves that daytime viewers still want a lot of that - basically things they are not getting on the soaps anymore.

As I mentioned earlier I read that article that said Law & Order reruns on TNT do well in the afternoons - even beating the network soaps at times. Look at what Law & Order does - it features a broad range of ages and not all the actors on there are models - the feature all types of folks. And the stories are filled with many of the staples of things that soaps used to feature all the time.

I think the audience still wants these things - soaps just aren't giving them to them anymore.

I have sited many things throughout the years on this and other messageboards that are big problems with daytime and I still hold to all of them - not one of the them really being the total cause - just a conglomeration of all them leading to the destruction. But one of those that is key more than any of the others is that the biggest mistake daytime made was when the idiots in control said we are going to concentrate on this demo from now on. We will target them and no one else. If we can get them that is all we need to worry about. It is like they flipped off the rest of their audience and said we don't care about you anymore.

If they would quit concentrating on one demo and trying to please them - and concentrate on giving all demos something - then they would be a whole lot more successful. Give all the age brackets someone to relate too. Pull viewers from each age bracket and it will all add up in the end to a successful show.

I think overall the audience still is there but I don't see any soap esp. in the current shape they are in ever tapping into it again.

No show can do it alone either - it has got to be an across the board effort. OLTL is trying as I said but GH and AMC right there on each end of it is not.

[Cat]

^^ IA with SteveFrame's assessment. Because it gives me hope!

The demand for soaps is there. The demand for what Daytime is currently offering (give or take some glimmers of light) is not.

I still say the time slots are a factor, too, given that most people actually work between 12.30-4pm, but nobody really agrees with me on that one.

And the fact is, TV is changing. People are watching made-to-measure niche entertainment on their computers. These ratings, I honestly believe, only represent a fraction of soaps' total viewing audience.

[MarkH]

And I'll co-sign with both of you.

But it really seems we are all converging on a common answer: From Sylph--bring back the Labines to give them a funeral. From Cat--let the current form rest and sleep. From Steve--When the next generation of soaps starts, probably in some future timeslot and media delivery system, pay attention to the intelligence, the integrity, and the broad age range.

In a strange way, like Cat, I am optimistic. I don't believe the form will disappear...indeed, I think a rebirth can be more satisfying. I just thing that, SPECIFICALLY, All My Children, One Life to Live, General Hospital, Days of Our Lives, As the World Turns, Guiding Light, Bold and Beautiful and (sob!) Young and the Restless will all be gone by 2016 or earlier.

You know, when people like WostBrian...AS DEVOTED A SOAP FAN AS EVER LIVED...HE BUILT A WHOLE TRIBUTE WEBSITE....leave the form...you know you're at the end time. Your most basic viewer base is gone.

I wish wish wish wish Brian Frons and Barbara Bloom and WHOMEVER at NBC would sit down and say: "Let's plan a dignified ending. Let's set a date, and let's usher it out in style."

Not gonna happen...but it should.

[Then, I want an online delivery system that lets me purchase/rent 100% of AW (at least till the early 90s), Y&R, and AMC (through Bianca's leaving town with Maggie). That would satisfy me for another 40 years or so .

[Sylph]

I am interested in two things:

1. Why 2016 specifically? Which ratings point specifically will get Y&R cancelled?

2. Why do you think the networks don't want to move soaps to a later timeslot?

[SteveFrame]

I have now officially left the current genre of soaps - but just the current genre.

I have not made this too public but yesterday marked 3 weeks that I have not watch 1 second of any of the 8 network soap operas at all.

I started out January 2008 watching all 8 daytime soaps. By the start of june I was down to All My Children and One Life To Live. 3 weeks ago for some reason I quit watching OLTL.

I still actually think I would like OLTL. I loved it when I quit watching - but it goes back to the lineup thing. I got tired of planning my daily schedule around 1 show. I work from home and I usually find myself watching pretty much the same thing while I work each day with little variations here and there.

My TV stays on Lifetime for 4 hours of comedy every morning (The Nanny, Golden Girls, Frasier & Will and Grace). Usually after Will & Grace I take a break and work out and some other things.

Since 2001 when I opened my business in my home and started working at home, at Noon I started my big afternoon of production and watched my soaps. I would usually watch the CBS shows live everyday. And then catch the other soaps at night on SoapNet. The CBS soaps started losing me earlier this year and I switched back over to ABC - giving up GH totally in March. So in april I was watching Days, AMC, & OLTL. I dropped Days in May and thus was down to AMC & OLTL.

After Dixie left and it went back to mostly the sextette from hell featuring 3 of the worst characters ever in daytime (Zach, Kendall & Greenlee) I gave it up. I realized they had not learned any thing at all. I gave up AMC for reruns of Without a Trace on TNT.

Each day it just got harder and harder to either remember to change the TV after WAT went off. Often I would be busy and couldn't change it thus causing me to get interested in the current case on Law & Order which aired after WAT. So I finally just gave up and have left it there.

Strangely I have not been interested enough to find out what is going on either. I have watched soaps since 1970. I still work on my soap opera history site and building my shrine to the glory of soaps and will always treasure the shows I love. I love watching old clips but the current soaps I don't miss at all. For me the current 8 soaps are already dead and gone.

That makes me very sad. But along with you if AW, Somerset, The Edge of Night, Days of Our Lives in it's 1970 and 1980 glory days (before Sherri Anderson & James E. Reilly ruined it), or any of the old soaps came out on video I would buy them all.

[MarkH]

That is tongue and cheek, and is based on the following assumptions (all probably wrong): (a) Each soap will decline 0.2/year; ( Each soap will be cancelled when it reaches a HH rating of 1.0. When you use this season's ratings as a baseline, that suggests that current soaps will be cancelled beginning in 2010, and ending in 2016 (with, yes, Y&R as the last). The truth is that I think it won't quite happen that way.

I think what will happen is that a network will decide to get out of the soap BUSINESS and will cancel all its shows at once. This is why I think Y&R won't live long enough (i.e., 2016) to see a 1.0 rating.

If that would happen, it would have. First, in 50+ years, they haven't been tempted to do these at night. [i'm not counting Our Private World, Eileen Fulton's ATWT spinoff or Peyton Place or the other primetime soaps...I'm really restricting myself to the daily serial form. Interestingly, HBO's In Treatment may be the closest thing). Second, they used to air special episodes at night surrounding the Daytime Emmies and Soap Opera Digest Awards, but these were ratings flops and they stopped doing it. Third, Soapnet's primetime soaps seem to be a flop--enough that the network is rapidly re-branding. Fourth, as you point out, other serials have been hit and miss in primetime. Fifth, as you reminded us, the MyNetwork experiment in all soaps/all the time (okay, telenovelas) was an abject failure.

Conclusion, no soaps in primetime.

[MarkH]

Obviously, this coming from you of all people -- like WostBrian -- is a real indictment.

I mean, I clearly am heavily invested in the genre, and even I only WATCH one show daily (Y&R). I record B&B, but last week only watched 1.5 episodes--and that was online--and that was honestly only in response to some announced pool and bed scenes But that is my history with B&B...I drift in and out depending on how stupid it makes me feel.

That's largely a function of available time, other demands, and also the fact that I can so easily keep up.

So, I do think many of us here represent part of the problem.

[Cat]

Except for Spanish-language telenovelas, of course.

I'm not suggesting Primetime for the current crop of serials, I'm suggesting the 5-8pm pre-evening slot.

And I hear ya, SteveFrame, on soaps losing their grip on our imagnations. I'm down to Y&R and B&B, maybe a little Days if I remember to watch. It all feels so disposable. By contrast, I caught an episode of 1989 Santa Barbara where Robert Barr and Eden meet in Mason's office. I got goosebumps. The dialogue, the atmospheric music, the sheer swoony chemistry between Marcy Walker and Roscoe Born... it's like my senses were heightened and tingling. With regards to soaps, that hasn't happened in a while.

[MarkH]

Yes, I'm not sure I've EVER felt "tingling", but that could be a gender thing.

Okay, what IS the difference between the telenovelas and everything else?

1. Is it a cultural thing? (B&B was always particularly hot in the Mediterranean countries...but telenovelas are really of relevance to Mexico and Central/South America). If it is cultural, WHAT about it is cultural?

2. Is it a limited choice thing? (In other words, there are far fewer Spanish-language channels, so telenovelas have less competition).

3. Is it a timeslot thing?

4. Is it a brief run thing? (In other words, you're not making a lifetime commitment).

Is it something else?

[Sylph]

Yes, I meant this timeslot, too. Daytime soaps will never ever air in primetime.

[SteveFrame]

Oh God it has been so long since I got a tingling feeling watching my soaps. It is not a gender thing - at least not for me. It used to be a common occurance, but the last ten years it has been a fleeting moments thing.

I think the last time I really got it was when Maggie Horton was being killed on Days during the SSK. The acting was so brilliant during those scenes that I was in awe.

Over the years I have got that feeling often esp. from the chemistry between some actors/actresses or the brilliance of the scene from the acting to the writing etc. Sometimes they can be little moments that don't even mean anything at all in the long run. soaps were brilliant for that.

And it has been so long since one of my soaps moved me to tears. They have made such a mockery of death these days that I stopped investing my heart in the scenes a long time ago. Why invest yourself when you know it will be undone? I guess it was either Mac Cory, Ada Hobson, or Tom Horton's death that made me cry last. Even now when a star dies in real life they don't even do the characters death justice on the show anymore. Look at what AMC did to Phoebe's death and ATWT did to Hal's death.

It is just sickening.

[Ann_SS]

I find myself watching L&O instead of the soaps as well and I hate that series. Yet, it is too easy to get caught up in an episode and stick to see how the case is resolved so I can believe that L&O is giving the soaps a run for their money in the ratings.