OLTL: Has anyone else given up watching this show?

[R Sinclair]

What also irritates me is "ratings" being used as a reason viewers think someone's a hack and should be fired. Let's face it, we, that majority of the online soap audience, have spent years complaining that the ratings aren't fair, and that the 18-49 demographic ignores a huge part of the viewing audience and how it's insulting that we are subjected to plot driven material, explosions and stunt casting all in an effort to get ratings up -- sacrificing good story with characters we care about.

But NOW ratings are very important to us in our decision to fire someone?

[marceline]

OLTL has definitely been more stunt-ridden since RC took over: Mendorra, 1968, the Go Red Ball (although that was a network stunt with AMC having its Fashion show) and now the

which I am sure is just going to be a short-term dream sequence for Todd. AMC hasn't done nearly the amount of off the wall stuff. It's pretty clear ABCD is putting its money and energy behind AMC. They're promoting Pratt and they get an extra boost with SuLu on DWTS.

[rhinohide]

I think we agree more than we disagree. YOU say Todd and Blair, John and Natalie, had run their course before Carlivati. Others are free to disagree, and for those viewers who do disagree, RC failed. I also think characters/couples/stories ARE polarizing by design. They're all intended to evoke a plethora of reactions in an audience that is diverse and watches the show from varying perspectives, and the stronger the different emotional responses are, the more polarizing. I believe the writers, directors, performers fully intend to evoke strong emotional responses in the audience, and the polarizing effect is merely a consequence of strong preferences that are in conflict.

I am as guilty as anyone of thinking a lot of viewers are like me, and see things the same as I do. The funny part about that is, there is plenty of evidence to the contrary right on this board, and on others. LOL.

ITA. Y&R is #1 in the ratings. Some people claim that as proof that it's the best soap. I don't enjoy it at all. So it's not the best soap to ME. And I don't care how many people watch it. I can see some good things about Y&R and some not so good. But ratings aren't a measure of quality IMO.

To DavidEvanSmith: You, my dear, are going to require a response for which time will not allow at the moment. LOL. I will definitely get back to you though.

[Vee]

I like Todd and Blair. But I also know why people don't. The key, for me, in getting back onboard there, was what I felt was excellent writing for them once RC took over. (Nowadays, Blair would have to be crazy to go near the psycho.) Jolie OTOH, I liked early on but despised by the end. It became disgusting and demeaning and I never want Natalie to touch him again.

[dragonflies]

LOL what I find funny if it were any other writer, the ratings would DEFINITELY matter, but when it comes to RC suddenly they don't......

No ratings aren't a measure of quality, but they definitely mean something. Is Ron proud that OLTL was #1 in the 12-17 year old age group?

[DavidEvanSmith]

Well the 12-17s of today are the 18-49s of tomorrow, so if the plan is to hook 'em young........

[rhinohide]

LOL! You sound so surprised.

I did underline those comments as examples of the statements I was discussing, but I didn't intend to point a finger at you. Although, you did caveat your remarks, you reiterate above that you really do think you have a finger on the pulse of the audience based on your personal research and the information that is available to you. My background is in business and particularly market research and consumer behavior and that experience is what I use to draw my own conclusions that viewer preference is highly complex and its sources are derived from a lifetime of personal experiences and lessons. You and I may enjoy exactly the same stories/characters, but for vastly different reasons and to different degrees of preferences. Consumer products firms devote tremendous resources for research designed specifically to identify the sources of consumer preferences so those can be manipulated through advertising and packaging and shape product development strategies, and at the end of the day no matter how scientific the research and how informative the data . . . it's still largely a crap shoot because preference is an emotional response to stimuli and it's very hard to quantify emotion.

I deliberately avoided being specific because that invites "emotional" responses. If I'd named any particular character pairing, then people who don't (or do) like them are inclined to argue that breaking them up or writing them off was a good decision or vice versa, which obfuscates the point I was trying to make that preferences simply ARE. There is no right or wrong about them.

Let me use a totally off topic example.

I am watching #3 Georgia and #8 Alabama play football right now. I have no idea what the ratings are for this primetime football game, but I think I can safely assume that more people are watching this game than watch an episode on One Life to Live. Why do they watch?

There are so many reasons I could never list them. A minority are watching because they're a family member of one of the players and those fans are very invested in the outcome. At the other end of the spectrum, some like me are watching just because I am a college football fan and it's the only game on right now and I am not that invested at all. Regardless of the specific reasons for tuning into the game, I contend that few people will not root for one team or the other. They almost inevitably have some degree of preference about who wins! Sometimes the preferences make perfect sense. The Georgia fans have a very strong preference because they want their team to play for a national championship. If Georgia loses tonight, somebody else's team jumps in the polls and becomes closer to the national championship, so those fans have very strong preferences as well. Sometimes preferences can be downright silly. I am rooting for Alabama because I like the underdogs, I love their name (Crimson Tide -- I love Steely Dan's song Deacon Blues so much because it uses the Crimson Tide in it's lyrics) and I like their coach Nick Saban. How people react to the outcome of the game will depend on the intensity of their preferences. Somebody will be crying at the end of the game. Others will be breaking down the play calling and the player's performances for the next two days. Me? I probably won't even remember who won on Monday.

I think soap fans have similarly divergent preferences to widely varying degrees of investment. Some are highly invested (obsessive even?) in particular characters and their enjoyment is tied to the outcomes of those characters' stories. They're like the family members of the football players and they have intense preferences. At the other end of the range are people who are very casual. And there are infinite combinations of preferences and levels of intensity in between the extremes.

They were appreciated, welcomed and enjoyed by whom? I seriously doubt the hundreds of thousands of viewers who flipped the channel in the last two years, tuned out because Andrea Evans/Tina and Susan Haskell/Marty weren't on the show. And their returns didn't bring THOSE viewers back. I am not saying bringing them back was a bad decision. That depends on what objectives the returns were intended to achieve. If the objective was to increase ratings, then clearly that objective hasn't been met. I suspect Ron brought those characters back solely to drive stories that he had formulated in his head. If that was the reason, then the returns met their designed purpose.

I also think online fans in general, and this message board in particular are perhaps the worst representation of the general viewing audience precisely because so many of us are "students" of the genre, we are heavily skewed toward the "intense preference" end of the spectrum and we analyze everything in tremendous detail. I don't think the general viewer does that. I think most tune in, watch an episode, and when it's over it's over, and they were either entertained or they were not. But they don't think about it. They don't write letters to the magazines or tptb. They don't look at things like the production values, or critique the dialogue, or the actors' performances. Do those elements impact their entertainment? Of course, but in a much more subliminal way than it does for most of us on THIS message board.

Finally, I don't think Carlivati has "failed". I don't think I ever said I did. I think we have to accept that he has failed some viewers however, purely based on THEIR preferences. I just wasn't enjoying the stories. That happens all the time. I go through spells where the show isn't entertaining me and this is one, but that's not some kind of blanket condemnation of Carlivati's overall performance.

LOL. Me Too!

[R Sinclair]

That's too logical. Granted, I started watching AMC when I was 10 and here it is 19 years later... No. That's too logical. HACK! The man's a HACK! HACK HACK HACK! Dammit, y'all, just agree already so we can get him fired and then bitch about his replacement.

[Sylph]

It's a non sequitur. If they're watching now, by no means does it mean they'll be watching 10 years from now. Probably it'll get cancelled anyway somewhere in that time range.

You also hated him, but now somehow changed the tune. That's OK, just weird.

[cal3]

I pretty much stay out of OLTL threads as after decades of watching I walked away, but I thought Rhino had some great points. I do think audience opinion and reaction is far more complex than the shows and the boards or any other measure of opinion gathering gives credit. It's all too easy to say I'd enjoy seeing Tina again. Which one? You can't assume from my statement that I wanted AE back when there were three Tina's in memory. I can say I'd love to see the Cramers and the Buchanans front and center but that doesn't translate into my favorite members of the Cramer, Lord, Buchanan families are Blair, Starr, Adrianna, Todd, Nat and Jessica. In fact ,for me, other than Jessica if I were ranking my personal favorites in those families you would see a good start on the bottom of the list. It is too easy to rely on sound bites on message boards in my opinion.

[BayCityResident]

Just an off the cuff remark...for a conversation about a writer getting fired, the man sure does get people talking. Of the shows on the air right now, which show here on these boards tends to get the most comments? During the Rex/Adrianna wedding and B.E. takeover, how many pages were there for aday's/week's discussion??? Now, someone just mentions about the man getting fired and this is up to 11 pages already. At least people care enough about this show and the goings-on to be involved.

What other show or writer is getting this much attention on the boards? Whether you agree with the comments or not, people are at least commenting .

I'd rather have this kind of involvement for a show, than say GL's discussion pages? (how many pages does that show get in a month!)

[Vee]

I've seen people, I can't remember who, try to compare GL's current state favorably in comparison to the "inferior" OLTL. Sad but true. I think whoever said it must not have watched more than eight minutes of GL in their lives.

[DavidEvanSmith]

LOL, I did realize I was doing that AS I was doing it. It's hard to explain, I guess, but it's kind of like "All I know is all that I know". I have a belief, and MY view of the audience is based on all the evidence that's been available to ME. So no, it's not accurate, and FAR from complete data. But it's all any of us has, really. And I guess it's the trap we all fall into, trying to back up our statements and arguments with the supporting evidence we've been able to gather. You don't fall into that trap as easily, so I must commend you and say it's a JOY jousting with you on this thread.

I don't disagree with really anything you've written, I just want you to know that.

Understood.

Great example, and I get ya.

Agreed. But it might have brought THOSE viewers back, though at the only the same rate that other viewers were tuning out because they weren't digging it.

All in all, I think Carlivati's made smart choices. With any soap, obviously you're not going to please every fan in every way, all of the time. The struggle is to really achieve the most widely-appealing canvas of characters, so that "everyone" has a reason to tune in. I believe there's an audience for the character of Tina, and Carlivati must as well, to want to secure the arguably definitive Tina on the canvas again. Same for Haskell as Marty. I'd say OLTL has a very balanced canvas as far as age, looks, familial representation... ethnic diversity still lacks. On the other end, I'd say GH has the least-balanced/appealing canvas.

Agreed.

It's an extreme pleasure posting with you.

LOL. Thanks.

It doesn't guarantee future viewing at all, no. But I was trying to express that I think that's the reason the demographic IS coveted. People argue that nothing should be targeted to the 12-17s because they aren't spending the money, their PARENTS are doing the shopping. (I see both sides of that as a manager in children's clothing retail) But the mentality is that this is your future consumer, and they want to drill messages into kids heads about products and tv shows when the kids are young and impressionable and trying to figure out what "cool" means. "Hook 'em young!"

I thought Rhinohide had some great points too!

[rhinohide]

Thanks to cat3 and DavidEvanSmith. It's nice when someone sees the point in my ramblings. Sometimes I wonder.

I would sincerely love to develop research for ABC Daytime. I think they completely misuse focus groups in their decision making processes. Focus Groups are a valuable tool, but you don't use them to make definitive decisions about hiring and firing or which characters to create stories for.

It could have, you're right. But I don't think ABC Daytime conducts research that will capture that information so it's purely hypothetical. They track raw demographic data about who is watching, but they don't seem to get at the why.

Furthermore based on what we believe about ABC Daytime's strategic objectives (appealing to younger viewers), I don't think their strategy includes a tactical plan to bring back viewers that tuned out 18 years ago (when AE last appeared in the role of Tina). JMO obviously, but I don't think most of those viewers fit that demographic they're trying to draw.