Does Brian Frons Love Daytime

[Soapsuds]

Compared to last year.....the ABC soaps have lost over 1.2 million viewers. AMC, GH, and OLTL are the top 3 in the most total viewers lost from last year.

1. GH 2,834,000 (-124,000/-470,000)

2.OLTL 2,759,000 (+102,000/-441,000

3. AMC 2,667,000 (+100,000/-434,000)

[dragonflies]

Looks like GH has lost more than AMC and OLTL.

Thanks Soapsy

I just don't get it. Is he blackmailing someone or something, there's no other explanation

[emilyq]

Hey I'm not defending the guy at all I'm just trying to understand if there is some method behind the madness because I don't think for a second he's stupid. ABC's demos are pretty much right behind Y&R right or maybe 3rd and I keep hearing that's all they care about at ABC.

My opinion in terms of his pets being front and center. He keeps a set of maybe 5 or 6 core characters on each show and everyone else becomes expendable. He rotates in cheap newbies in and out every year. You have Sonny, Carly, Jason and the Z's at GH now. On AMC Rylee and Zendall. OLTL is exempt from this for the time being.

And on a side note, I'm done with the stunt casting. I tuned into AMC for a few weeks to watch Angie and Jessie and now their back on backburner for the most part and I won't be tuning in to GH to watch GH again waste the most wonderful Genie Francis.

[soaplvr02]

just remember, networks do not care about overall viewers. everyone loves to cite those ratings around here, but networks do not care. the only rating they care about is "the demo"... the 18-49 (and even more so 18-34)

hate to break it to you... if you're over 50, networks don't care about you. not for daytime or primetime. you're not the advertisers demo.

that said, all of them are losing viewers in the demo as well.

[emilyq]

That being said even the coveted demos have dropped. I just wonder though. Doesn't Days still do decent in the 18-34 demo yet is lower in the ratings? If all they care about is demos, why is Days on the chopping block.

[dragonflies]

Yeah but are ABC soaps even doing all that well in the coveted demos?

Isn't OLTL like #1 with 12-17 year old demo? Oye

[emilyq]

OLTL is #1 I think. If that's the group they want to attrack, I would think that should tell ABCD something.

I think all ABC Soaps demos are down proportionately to ratings and viewers. I think GH was 1.3 in 18-34 last year and are now 1.0 and I think they were 1.7 or 1.8 in 18-49 last year and are now 1.4. Maybe those are still decent demo numbers considering that overall TV viewership is down.

[MarkH]

This is why long-lived soaps really HAVE to end.

Weeks ago, marceline talked about "nostalgia" ruining daytime.

The thing is this: If you have a show that has been around 70 or 35 years, some of the viewers are going to age with it.

EVEN if you are successful in recruiting new viewers, you're going to drag some of the older ones along too. That mixed audience is anathema to advertisers, who increasingly want niche markets. The reason ESPN is heralded as Disney's supreme success story is because it VERY effectively brings young men. So targeted advertising can be delivered. G4 went after the same demo on non-sports loving guys (videogamers), and by all accounts that has failed. So, finding the niche is tricky, but when you do it...it is gold.

Soapnet was supposed to be the female ESPN. Indeed, in the early days, "SportsCenter" had its analog in "SoapCenter". But soaps do not have the same broad appeal for women that sports do for men. Indeed, I gather the home-and-gardening and entertainment (E!) channels are having more success with the female demo.

==

But there is a bigger problem than the "mixed" audience. There is the sheer fact that, when it comes to pop culture (music, movies, television), the younger generation does not like what the older generation does. (Of course there are exceptions). Young people use pop culture as an "individuation" tool...as a way of separating themselves and creating identities. They will REPUDIATE something that older people like, because they want to be separate. Plus, there is the sheer narcissism of wanting to see people "like me".

(Now, I know we have all seen those letters in SOD where the writer says 'I'm 18, and I don't just want to watch 18 year olds...I like seeing Bob Hughes on ATWT'. Good for that letter writer, but the NUMBERS show that letter writer is an anomaly...a "freak"...not the norm).

This is why "The Hills" and "Gossip Girl" are pop culture darlings. They may not have huge numbers, but they draw their niche with remarkable effectiveness.

For daytime serials to thrive, they need to last AT MOST five years. I imagine it would be possible to create a fictional universe (say, Oakdale or Genoa City) where new series are constantly situated within the same universe, and a few legacy characters get dragged from one serial to another.

As a lover of old chestnuts (like Y&R), I'm part of the problem. By filling the daypart with something that appeals to me, time that COULD be used to cultivate new audience members with shows for THEIR generation is lost.

Except of course...and this is the REAL horror for CBS and its' ilk...while the "big three" are wasting their time on uncool old folks programming for me (like Y&R), other networks are coming along...WHOLE NETWORKS...WHOLE NICHES...to fulfill the next generation. And so, year by year, like the soaps they program, the big three die off...obsolete dinosaurs from the pioneer age of broadcasting.

[Soapsuds]

That's not a biggie. ATWT and even GL have held that top spot in 12-17 this year. Actually a few months ago.

[emilyq]

So you're basically saying that despite everything Brian Frons and others may try to do to reinvigorate their shows, they won't make it. Trying to turn a daytime soap into niche viewing for 18-34 year olds doesn't really seem to be working does it? Maybe there is something happening at ABC in terms of attracting those younger viewers I'm not seeing.

[Sylph]

People forget that soap is like a hobby or a specific part of human activities, a really, really specific genre that (now) has only a handful of fans. Once it used to be different, but they have pretty much destroyed themselves with the help of the fans and network executives. They're like video games or classical music or Hans Zimmer and John Williams - some hate them, some adore them; those who love soaps constitute a small number, a number not big enough to fuel networks demanding advertising rates.

The never-ending game of survival is present even here. And we didn't expect anything other than that...

[DeeeDee]

Yep.

[dragonflies]

Yeah and I fear for ABC Daytime as a whole if that's the demo they want, and I get the feeling it is. Ever taken on of those survey's ABC Daytime does at times? They list age groups, and basically if you're not a teen they aren't interested..........

[DeeeDee]

ABCD & Frons want to tell people what to like.

There's no room for creativity only plot driven stories & moral decline.

[soaplvr02]

i think frons means well... he's trying to keep what is otherwise an aging and dying genre alive.

but i always laugh when i come here and people are complaining about beall or something and her ridiculous dialogue or the teens and how they talk... why does everyone have to say "bitch" and "skank" etc.

the answer is because that is how the coveted demo talks. all the stuff an older viewer rolls their eyes at -- "get your snack on" or whatever is stuff that is catered to that demo.

i've noticed that some of the writers people hate the most around here are the ones that write the most "young" - pop culture references, sexual innuendo, etc.

frons wants those writers because he's hoping that will help.

not sure it is, however. but that's a problem with the genre as a whole. there's just a whole lot more choices. the coveted demo is spending more time online reading perezhilton than wathcing soaps