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Numbers are based on Live+Same Day ratings

Ratings for the week September 15-19, 2008

(Compared to Last Week/Compared to Last Year)

Total Viewers

1. Y&R 4,763,000 (-332,000/-776,000)

2. B&B 3,498,000 (-13,000/-191,000)

3. GH 2,932,000 (-5,000/-451,000)

4. ATWT 2,637,000 (+158,000/-360,000)

5. OLTL 2,560,000 (+5,000/-499,000)

6. AMC 2,530,000 (+65,000/-272,000)

7. DAYS 2,323,000 (-282,000/+11,000)

8. GL 2,030,000 (+6,000/-572,000)

HH

1. Y&R 3.5/13 (-.2/-.6)

2. B&B 2.6/9 (same/-.2)

3. GH 2.2/7 (-.1/-.4)

4. OLTL 2.0/7 (same/-.4)

4. ATWT 2.0/7 (+.1/-.2)

6. AMC 1.9/7 (same/-.3)

7. DAYS 1.8/6 (-.2/same) <--------- ties low rating

8. GL 1.5/5 (same/-.4) <----------- ties low rating

Women 18-49 Viewers

1. Y&R 1,133,000 (-81,000/same)

2. GH 998,000 (-31,000/-163,000)

3. OLTL 849,000 (-9,000/-150,000)

4. B&B 834,000 (+46,000/-2,000)

5. AMC 788,000 (+22,000/-127,000)

6. ATWT 747,000 (+149,000/-29,000)

7. DAYS 709,000 (-77,000/-118,000)

8. GL 575,000 (+57,000/-152,000)

Women 18-49 Rating

1. Y&R 1.7/11 (-.1/same)

2. GH 1.5/9 (-.1/-.3)

3. OLTL 1.3/8 (same/-.2)

3. B&B 1.3/8 (+.1/same)

5. AMC 1.2/7 (same/-.2)

6. DAYS 1.1/7 (-.1/-.2)

6. ATWT 1.1/7 (+.2/-.1)

8. GL 0.9/5 (+.1/-.2)

Girls 12-17 Viewers

1. Y&R 37,000 (+14,000/-31,000)

2. ATWT 35,000 (+13,000/+18,000)

3. DAYS 31,000 (same/+13,000)

4. GH 29,000 (+18,000/-6,000)

5. B&B 28,000 (+4,000/+8,000)

6. GL 27,000 (+14,000/+2,000)

6. AMC 27,000 (+11,000/+4,000)

8. OLTL 21,000 (+4,000/-2,000)

Women 18-34 Rating

1. GH 1.0/7 (-.1/-.2)

1. Y&R 1.0/7 (-.2/-.1)

3. AMC 0.9/6 (+.1/same)

3. OLTL 0.9/6 (same/-.1)

5. DAYS 0.7/5 (-.2/-.4) <---------- ties low rating

6. B&B 0.6/4 (-.1/-.2)

7. ATWT 0.5/3 (same/-.3)

8. GL 0.4/2 (+.1/-.4)

Men 18+ Viewers

1. Y&R 1,110,000 (-177,000/-313,000)

2. B&B 711,000 (-104,000/-163,000)

3. GH 495,000 (-53,000/-215,000)

4. ATWT 485,000 (-23,000/-143,000)

5. AMC 484,000 (-14,000/-102,000)

6. OLTL 454,000 (-55,000/-220,000)

7. DAYS 450,000 (-118,000/+24,000)

8. GL 405,000 (-41,000/-145,000)

-------------------------------------

Day-To-Day Ratings - HH/Total Viewers

AMC

Monday: 2.0/2,608,000

Tuesday: 2.0/2,651,000

Wednesday: 1.9/2,506,000

Thursday: 1.8/2,480,000

Friday: 1.8/2,407,000

ATWT

Monday: 2.1/2,686,000

Tuesday: 2.0/2,667,000

Wednesday: 1.9/2,447,000

Thursday: 2.2/2,736,000

Friday: 2.0/2,651,000

B&B

Monday: 2.9/3,780,000

Tuesday: 2.6/3,481,000

Wednesday: 2.5/3,338,000

Thursday: 2.6/3,520,000

Friday: 2.5/3,372,000

DAYS

Monday: 1.8/2,142,000

Tuesday: 1.8/2,272,000

Wednesday: 1.9/2,398,000

Thursday: 1.9/2,365,000

Friday: 1.8/2,438,000

GH

Monday: 2.5/3,165,000

Tuesday: 2.3/3,053,000

Wednesday: 2.2/2,762,000

Thursday: 2.2/2,872,000

Friday: 2.1/2,810,000

GL

Monday: 1.6/2,077,000

Tuesday: 1.5/2,091,000

Wednesday: 1.5/1,922,000

Thursday: 1.6/2,059,000

Friday: 1.5/1,994,000

OLTL

Monday: 2.0/2,614,000

Tuesday: 2.1/2,759,000

Wednesday: 2.0/2,516,000

Thursday: 1.9/2,498,000

Friday: 1.8/2,413,000

Y&R

Monday: 3.6/4,863,000

Tuesday: 3.6/4,920,000

Wednesday: 3.5/4,707,000

Thursday: 3.6/4,837,000

Friday: 3.3/4,487,000

----------------------

For the SEASON September 24, 2007 through September 21, 2008

HH

1. Y&R 3.9

2. B&B 2.8

3. GH 2.4

4. ATWT 2.2

5. OLTL 2.1

5. AMC 2.1

5. DAYS 2.1

8. GL 1.8

Women 18-49 Rating

1. Y&R 1.9

2. GH 1.6

3. DAYS 1.4

3. OLTL 1.4

5. B&B 1.3

5. AMC 1.3

7. ATWT 1.2

8. GL 1.1

Edited September 26, 200817 yr by Toups

Nice to see you "over here," ivn/Monkey/Kwing/kingsway/etc.

GL should have been allowed to die if they were going to let it go to pot like it has. I've been a big GL cheerleader for years, but enough is enough.

Don't be a jackass, SageyBob. And I know that's a difficult request for you. The only names I post under are ivnkplng (here, at GLMP, and on the yuku boards) and gllover (at PGP). Unlike you, my online goal is not to create distress for other posters, but rather to share in an appreciation of soap opera.

My God what happened to Y&R!

My God what happened to Y&R!

Mediocrity, DaytimeFan, mediocrity! Before that, there was a woman called Lynn Latham.

But to lose 300,000 viewers in a single week?! That's atrocious!

And I haven't been finding Y&R mediocre, I've been finding it quite enjoyable...is it Bill Bell? No. Is it Kay Alden at her peak? No. Is it on par with what Jack Smith was doing or better, I think so. I'm surprised and I bet MAB and HS and PR are too.

But to lose 300,000 viewers in a single week?! That's atrocious!

And I haven't been finding Y&R mediocre, I've been finding it quite enjoyable...is it Bill Bell? No. Is it Kay Alden at her peak? No. Is it on par with what Jack Smith was doing or better, I think so. I'm surprised and I bet MAB and HS and PR are too.

It's not bad, it's just... Bland. And with those medical stories, it's probably driving viewers insane. People just don't have any more patience. 

It lost its spark.

It should be interesting to see if any soap can get a significant bump for November sweeps, but I seriously doubt it at this point.

None of these shows are as good as they should be, some might be impoving, but the audience won't stick around for constant transitions it seems.

...but the audience won't stick around for constant transitions it seems.

Why bother? You grow attached to characters and stories only to have them disregarded, reversed and/or wiped off the canvas a year or two later.

Why bother? You grow attached to characters and stories only to have them disregarded, reversed and/or wiped off the canvas a year or two later.

Now that is the truth. You can't trust soaps, particularly those on ABC. You in invest in characters and stories and then a writer or an EP gets a hair up their butt, and to hell with the viewer, character or story.

So you are saying Latham was NOT mediocre? I agree. Her vision was wrong, but she knew how to launch (not finish) interesting tales.

Latham was terrible. 

But I think you really mean to say "Latham harmed the brand, and then mediocre writing failed to retain disaffected viewers". Maybe...but you know better than most that these weekly ratings swings have NOTHING to do with what you are calling "mediocrity". I fail to believe that those wild swings are related to what is on the show THAT WEEK.

This is precisely what I'm saying. First she totally harmed it, alienated a lot of extremely patient and faithful viewers, and then it took too long for something interesting to be set in motion. But once that happened, the writing could not sustain it.

It is still suffering from the same old things: lack of strong vision, mediocre material, behind-the-scenes mess, corporate control of the soap, weird writers hirings/firings etc. One gigantic mess.

Mediocrity harms ratings by creating steady viewer attrition. That is definitely what we saw in the Spring-Summer of 2008. BLEEDING viewership.

Which is what happened. And those viewers won't come back. Y&R is probably the only soap that could regain lost viewers, but not anymore. 

Sylph, I do not believe medical stories are what is killing B&B.

Oh, I was referring to Victor's depression and Heather's condition.

And for this same week, here is how the telenovelas fared on Univision:

MONDAY

Querida enemiga (7-8 P;): 1.7/3 (1.2), 2.0/3 (1.5)

Al diablo con los guapos (8–9 PM): 2.6/4 (2.1), 2.8/4 (2.4)

Fuego en la sangre (9–10 PM): 2.5/4 (2.1), 2.6/4 (2.2)

TUESDAY

Querida enemiga: 1.8/3 (1.3), 2.0/4 (1.6)

Al diablo con los guapos: 2.7/4 (2.4), 3.0/5 (2.9)

Fuego en la sangre: 2.6/4 (2.5), 2.4/4 (2.2)

WEDNESDAY

Querida enemiga: 1.7/3 (1.2), 1.9/4 (1.5)

Al diablo con los guapos: 2.6/4 (2.3), 2.8/5 (2.6)

Fuego en la sangre: 2.4/4 (2.2), 2.3/4 (2.1)

THURSDAY

Querida enemiga: 1.6/3 (1.3), 1.9/4 (1.6)

Al diablo con los guapos: 2.7/5 (2.5), 2.9/5 (2.8)

FRIDAY:

Querida enemiga: 1.7/4 (1.2), 2.0/4 (1.6)

Al diablo con los guapos: 2.7/5 (2.8), 3.0/5 (2.9)

Household ratings/shares (18–49)

Here are the top ad spenders with changes in brackets:

1. Procter & Gamble (-4.33%)
2. General Motors (4.87%)
3. AT&T (-5.75%)
4. Verizon Communications (3.65%)
5. Johnson & Johnson (-5.62%
6. PepsiCo (9.12%)
7. Time Warner Inc. (-8.83%)
8. Toyota Motor (7.38%)
9. Ford Motor (-30.56%)
10. Kraft Foods (-10.36%)

So, I personally feel Night Shift is EXACTLY the way to go. For it to have REAL impact, it needs to be broadcast off a niche channel (like Soapnet). ABC should repurpose the show. When they have their first Fall cancellation (since nobody is programming 30 minute sitcoms anymore anyway), they should slot Night Shift there, and commit to running it for 13 weeks (no extra cost) and they should promote it like crazy. The show will get "low" ratings by conventional standards, but it will substantially increase eyeballs for that show and build the brand.

Still, I'd love to try to your experiment (Brothers and Sisters). But in my idealized version, they'd bring back Jon Robin Baitz to HW it, and THEY'D LEAVE HIM ALONE. They'd let him execute a singular vision that would be controversial and different from everything else on daytime.

I'm not sure if this is what you were saying or not, but just to clarify, I do not propose a spinoff of current soaps at all. I do not think there should be a spinoff of a current soap. The only thing that I would even give an ounce of a chance is if a popular character moved and popped up on a show. I don't even think that would work. I don't think Night shift will work in any fashion because it is a spinoff and is essentially the same thing as the daytime version. I think putting Night Shift on the network would be a big problem because the production quality is so very bad. If they would spend a little money before shooting it back to daytime, it might be a good ida.

I don't know if putting something on a popular existing evening show would work or not. My thoughts is in the current environment, you have to do something that makes people who work all day or who go to school take enough interest in a story that they would bother to turn on their DVRs to see if they like it. I didn't know that Texas spun off of a night time show. I thought, for some reason, that it was a spin off of Another World. PC was a spinoff of GH. Did it spin off of a nighttime show too?

I think Jon Robin Baltz is brilliant too. You idea would be great.

I'm not sure if this is what you were saying or not, but just to clarify, I do not propose a spinoff of current soaps at all. I do not think there should be a spinoff of a current soap. The only thing that I would even give an ounce of a chance is if a popular character moved and popped up on a show. I don't even think that would work.

I wholeheartedly agree. Any and all of my ideas for a new soap are based on the assumption that the current shows should no longer exist. It's like a scifi show where a character time travels at some point another character says "You shouldn't be here. Your presence here has destroyed everything!" That's how I feel about the current soaps. Most of them should have one off the air years ago and new shows should've filled those vacancies. Instead we have ReRon taking a serious, groundbreaking, REALITY-BASED story and turning it to typical soap pablum. He's taken the work of a far more talented writer and sacrificed it to his fantasy of what it would be like when he was finally in charge.

Imo, OLTL should have gone off the air after the end of the first Malone regime. (Although I can't help but notice how easily that version of Todd, Marty and Nora would fit into an episode of Law & Order: SVU.) And been replaced by a show focusing on the Gannons, Vegas, Bo, Nora, etc... until that didn't work anymore. Then it should have been replaced by something else and so on.

Instead the audience is forced to endure the equivalent of sitting at Thanksgiving dinner while Uncle Ron retells the story of his gallbladder surgery for the one hundredth time with a mouth full of cottage cheese If these shows had been allowed to run their course and replaced, maybe primetime wouldn't be the only place to find good soap these days.

Edited September 27, 200817 yr by marceline

If, as Mark posted, PGP/Telenext had spun off GL another soap with new characters with existing characters going and coming with a 1 or 2 day a week showing, I think that would have been fine. If that worked out, like GH: Night Shift, it could have been expanded throughout the week after a year or two. Unfortunately, they didn't do that. In my opinion, the powers that be have had enough time to work out the kinks in the current process, and they have had more than enough time to write good stories, which they haven't in over four years now.

I would rather have seen them cancel the show outright than whittle it down to nothing. It doesn't even bare a resemblance to the Guiding Light we saw just a few short years ago. The characters change daily and there is very little emotion in the scenes. To me, its like the show died and we continue to beat its dead corpse just for the sake of Proctor & Gamble's advertisements.

As for Goutman's statements regarding viewers don't want to watch soaps five days a week, I find that condescending and out of touch with soap viewers. With DVRs and VCRs, viewers would watch five days or more IF there was anything there to watch all five days. It is apparent that producers of some soaps don't want to invest their time for "five day a week" watching. ATWT and GL included. When people are entertained, they'll go out of their way to watch it. It simply isn't happening on most soaps now.