July 28 - August 1, 2008

[Jess]

I've started watching AMC too. I really like Angie/Jessie. I must admit, Zach is one of my favorite daytime characters. Ryan and his sperm are of no interest to me.

It's interesting how different people's opinions are about Ron the Overrated at OLTL. I think he is doing far more than looking at the show's history. He is totally recycling stories from the past, he's done nothing original. I don't think that is revisiting history, it's copying previous storylines.

[Angela]

MONDAY, JULY 28

1.(1) Y&R: Monday: 4.0/5,572,000 (-54,000)

2.(2) B&B: Monday: 2.8/3,894,000 (+114,000)

3.(4) ATWT: Monday: 2.0/2,767,000 (-12,000)

4.(3) GH: Monday: 2.0/2,596,000 (-264,000)

5.(7) DAYS: Monday: 2.0/2,588,000 (+188,000)

6.(8) AMC: Monday: 1.9/2,517,000 (+186,000)

7.(6) GL: Monday: 1.7/2,496,000 (+94,000)

8.(5) OLTL: Monday: 1.9/2,495,000 (+47,000)

TUESDAY, JULY 29

1.(1) Y&R: Tuesday: 3.8/5,340,000 (-232,000)

2.(2) B&B: Tuesday: 2.5/3,443,000 (-451,000)

3.(4) GH: Tuesday: 2.1/2,827,000 (+231,000)

4.(3) ATWT: Tuesday: 2.0/2,720,000 (-47,000)

5.(5) DAYS: Tuesday: 2.0/2,629,000 (+41,000)

6.(8) OLTL: Tuesday: 1.9/2,550,000 (+55,000)

7.(6) AMC: Tuesday: 1.8/2,329,000 (-188,000)

8.(7) GL: Tuesday: 1.6/2,307,000 (-189,000)

WEDNESDAY, JULY 30

1.(1) Y&R: Wednesday: 3.8/5,466,000 (+126,000)

2.(2) B&B: Wednesday: 2.5/3,381,000 (-62,000)

3.(5) DAYS: Wednesday: 2.0/2,761,000 (+132,000)

4.(4) ATWT: Wednesday: 1.9/2,733,000 (+13,000)

5.(3) GH: Wednesday: 2.1/2,605,000 (-222,000)

6.(6) OLTL: Wednesday: 2.0/2,529,000 (-21,000)

7.(7) AMC: Wednesday: 1.8/2,426,000 (+97,000)

8.(8) GL: Wednesday: 1.6/2,223,000 (-84,000)

THURSDAY, JULY 31

1.(1) Y&R: Thursday: 3.7/5,249,000 (-217,000)

2.(2) B&B: Thursday: 2.5/3,540,000 (+159,000)

3.(4) ATWT: Thursday: 1.9/2,714,000 (-19,000)

4.(5) GH: Thursday: 2.0/2,647,000 (+42,000)

5.(3) DAYS: Thursday: 1.9/2,580,000 (-181,000)

6.(6) OLTL: Thursday: 1.9/2,463,000 (-66,000)

7.(7) AMC: Thursday: 1.8/2,373,000 (-53,000)

8.(8) GL: Thursday: 1.5/2,215,000 (-8,000)

FRIDAY, AUGUST 1

1.(1) Y&R: Friday: 3.6/4,940,000 (-309,000)

2.(2) B&B: Friday: 2.5/3,415,000 (-125,000)

3.(3) ATWT: Friday: 1.9/2,508,000 (-206,000)

4.(4) GH: Friday: 2.0/2,451,000 (-196,000)

5.(6) OLTL: Friday: 1.8/2,289,000 (-174,000)

6.(7) AMC: Friday: 1.9/2,271,000 (-102,000)

7.(5) DAYS: Friday: 1.7/2,201,000 (-379,000)

8.(8) GL: Friday: 1.5/2,111,000 (-104,000)

[daysfan]

I'm not so down on OLTL/RC like some others are(though I do not think he's a soap god), and really love his work, but they deserved those ratings for last week. IMO, while the show was not horrible, it did majorly go down in quality compared to the previous weeks/months.

[Felix]

If things keep up, ABC will HAVE to do something. GL might be at the bottom of the barrel, but who's consistently right behind (except for DAYS occassionaly )? I just hope that RC isn't the one outed.

[Soapsuds]

Thanks Angela for the daily breakdowns in ratings.

[marceline]

Robin C is one of my fave actresses but it's all just patchwork as long as Frons is still there. But I'd like to Adam and Skye together again.

What is she doing now anyway?

[RiffRaffGroupie]

I can't believe that ABC has the nerve to brag about these numbers. They'll spin anything. It's ridiculous that Guza's still employed. The show is so BORING. Every day is "Crimson, blah blah, permanent coma, blah blah, betrayal, blah blah, territory, blah blah." It's creatively bankrupt.

[marceline]

Ron had two things going for him: 1.) He followed Higley and 2.) the writers strike

But now the "anything's better than Dena" buzz has long worn off, all the scab stuff is a memory and - surprise! - the audience still expects more than a trip down memory lane.

[TMOTVSoaps]

Weekly Ratings Analysis

Let me start off by saying this is a very bad week for soaps. It seems like post-July sweeps always does them in. There were way too many soaps hanging under 2.0 or at the 1.9 mark in this case. After a good week last week were back to bottom feeding.

DOOL, it wasn't a mystery that this show was going to rise especially since they're going to be hot via the Olympics boost and the event they have going on the show. This was also the only soap last week that looked bad and now look how things have turned around for them.

The end of the week days like Thursdays and Fridays are concerning as these days continue to bring down soap ratings and they need to be fixed before the fall starts. If it wasn't for these two days then most soaps numbers would really look good.

Soaps all year have had this problem of free falling or going up every other week and alot of this is b/c of the casual fans. The extra 500,000 viewers for each soap will not stick around unless they have a reason to.

Y&R reaching a 3.8 doesn't surprise especially since I've been saying this is the one soap that can get over the 4.0 mark. I'm not looking at Y&R ratings that hard until November sweeps when I feel this show will be hovering around the 4.5 mark.

Without further or do let me break down each soap.

All My Children

I couldn't understand why AMC has kept their audience for so long. This show doesn't matter right now until they get Pratt in there at the end of August. Most of the storylines you're seeing there right now will die off in September. Losing 300,000 viewers from the previous week concerns me, but AMC is still hanging around 2.5 million viewers mark so its still in good shape after one of their worst weeks in history. AMC needs to change their camera and I bet you numbers go over 2.3. Every time I watch Night Shift, I keep saying to myself that AMC needs to go to HD.

As the World Turns

Creatively this show is very balanced and very exciting. This is the one show where I feel you can watch just about every storyline. Their veteran presence was missing most of the week so that was concerning. ATWT really needs to fix their end of the week problems as its bringing down their rating.

Bold and the Beautiful

Let me say the show was terrible this week and towards the end of last week. They wrapped up a pretty hot storyline way too soon just so they can get back to the boring Katie stuff. B&B won't see 3s until the winter anyways so I'm not expecting too much from them, but seeing 2.5s instead of 2.6s is annoying. Speak to me when the Katie stuff wraps up about this borefest.

Days of Our Lives

As mentioned before, DOOL advertised their event for August during prime time and its paid off. They've finally got out of that 1.7 and 1.8 zone. They've shown stability this week and they finally got over that 2.0 mark. They've made changes with the writing team so this is the soap to watch out for come this fall.

General Hospital

Biggest disappointment of the week and this show is suffering from identity issues. It took along time to figure out what's wrong with this show and its in an identity crisis. One scene its a hospital show, mob show, fashion show, and then its a cop show. GH really needs to pick it up as they've got too much going on and part of this is no family element on this show at all. All the kids have growed up and now were seeing out of control adults. ABC's flagship show had its worst week ever and needs to make the necessary changes like Y&R did.

Guiding Light

The hottest soap right now is suffering hugely from their production format. In order for GL to continue to rise past 1.7 and get near 2.0, they've got to abandon the cheap production format. This show is too good right now to be hanging around the mid 1s. GL had its best episodes of the year when they hit the 1.5 mark and that's concerning.

One Life to Live

6 straight weeks now dominating the Girls 12-17 demo needs to be recognized. I think all of the ABC soaps should be taking advantage of the Girls 12-17. Overall the whole 18-49 needs to be updated and include a new 12-64 demo b/c shows are being viewed differently than before. They're iffy, but at least they were able to get a 2.0 on their own on Wednesday. This is another soap that's going to explode from Starr's labor moment coming soon. They need a lift from AMC though so they can reach the 2.5 mark.

Young and the Restless

I know I called Guiding Light the hottest soap, but this might've just taken the cake. Y&R is on fire right now and I personally think this week was better than the July 28-August 1 week. You can tell this show is alot more watchable all the way through than it was six months ago. Hogan Sheffer you have saved Y&R for right now. Y&R still has some problems that need to be fixed, but its good enough to surpass that. The slide at the end of the week is concerning though. This is the one soap that makes all other soaps look good and we need it to succeed.

All in all very bad week and very forgettable numbers. Soaps need to be more consistent and fix that end of the week problem and bring back the emphasize of the cliffhanger Friday.

[Evan]

B&B will fall to 2.5 next week, "THE KATIE SHOW" doesn't rate. Bell and Alden can pimp Heather Tom and Jack Wagner all they want, but the simple truth is their SL makes viewers tune out. B&B regulars would prefer to see more of Susan Flannery, Hunter Tylo, John McCook, Lesli Kay, Winsor Harmon, Lesley Ann Down and a few others! KKL has been basically reduced to a supporting actress propping up other SLs. Give Brooke her own SL, something not related to the Logans, or Ridge.

[RalphOrtiz]

It's too bad that GL's ratings don't reflect the absolute riveting drama that it is right now. It hasn't been this good in ages. Hopefully, more viewers will tune in soon.

[BlueLick]

Great ratings analysis here, I can just about agree with everything you said. Its good you watch all eight soaps because it gives me an idea why some of these soaps are free falling like you said.

That Friday cliffhanger element is what's missing now in days. They reflect Monday too much instead hyping up Thursday and Friday up.

[RoseVioletDaisy]

Guiding Light is not great right now and it's hideous production format is still the least of it's problems. It was pretty good for about three or four weeks when the writing was decent but this show just suckered alot of us into believing that somebody over there had finally gotten a clue and was willing to at least try and put this mess in order. But we were wrong. Again. We were all duped by a little shallow dip in the Jeva history pool and the interesting but already over baby Max drama. It's been obvious from the last week's shows though that we're still stuck with a dark, desolate, and soulless Springfield that is populated by nothing but criminals and their victims, who lack the self-respect or strength to demand justice, in fact they'll be bending over backwards to get their abusers approval and love. Again. The show's immediate shift back to DingBatDaisy, ScumbagGrady, and GhostWhisperLunaticAlan is gonna plunge GL right back down the toilet again, especially after they shamelessly get away with the first degree pre-meditated murder of Tammy and the impending triangle-from-hell of Rafe/Daisy/Grady/ gets started.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Looks like most soaps took a hit on Friday, were there mass preemptions that day?

Very promising for Y&R, they didn't dip as low as 3.3's or 3.4's in the dallies this week.

But a truly horrible week overall for the soaps...

[marceline]

Do you think they'll be able to hold on to this lead once school starts and shows like Gossip Girl and One Tree Hill are back in production?