September 22-26, 2008

[marceline]

Yes there's definitely been threads about ABC's promos and even I have liked what I've seen. But I've only seen them because people posted them here. The people who "matter" i.e. offline viewers will never see them. As much as I love the online soap community, IMHO the "salvation" of soaps - whatever that looks like doesn't rest with us. It's the offliners that matter.

I don't watch CBS soaps but they've managed to work their way into my consciousness because I've seen their banner ads on sites I didn't expect. TWOP - and not on the soap forums. I only go to the primetime boards. I think I also saw them on TV Guide (again not the soap page) and IMDB. To be fair, banner ads have a bigger impact on me than the "average" viewer because my job requires me to spend 90% of my workday on the internet and I'm often on the net at strange times (In case some of you were wondering... )

From what I've seen on the boards, Sudden Impact was a rousing success because Y&R has done a very good job of leveraging its old i.e classic elements into the new. ABC doesn't even come close. Their idea of a big promo campaign was "three women, one man."

[TMOTVSoaps]

Weekly Ratings Analysis

Y&R Leads the Way

I haven't done the Ratings Analysis in about a month due to not having any real free time to get around to it, but I'm glad I'm posting them again and serving my readers in-depth analysis for each soap individually.

Let me start off by saying that the fall is here and thank god it is b/c the ratings are improving for each soap week to week especially in the writing quality. Pratt is really turning AMC around better than I thought. AMC fell a little boring last week so its understandable why ratings went down like they did. GH is the best its been probably since last winter. OLTL really surprised me b/c they had a good s/l going and the show is improving again and its going to be a beast this fall as Starr's pregnancy will come into play. ATWT has been red hot and probably the best of the soaps during that week. Y&R seems to be improving some this week, but they've got to get rid of those boring storylines interfering with the show.

You guys are going to start seeing each soap dramatically improving in their ratings in the coming weeks. To me from September-May is the best time to watch soaps. November Sweeps are usually the most important of the sweep period so watch out as your soaps are going to get interesting and numbers should spike up. I already said that. LOL!

At this point the soaps have stabilized and haven't dropped any further from where they were at so that's a positive sign. I say soaps are here to stay if they can give the networks confidence through sweeps that they can rise at least 2 HH points and get over the 3 million viewers.

Without further or do let me break down each soap.

As the World Turns

I'm not sure but this has got to be the hottest of the soaps. They've been on point since the very last week of August. I loved how they've used all of the characters and that new Lily is a winner. She completely made me forget about Martha Byrne. Paul and Meg's storyline has been so thrilling too. I like watching Liberty and Parker b/c they bring so much energy to the show, but they were not needed recently and that's how good the writing has been as of late. Good job ATWT!

All My Children

Charles Pratt is a godsend as there's finally a writer since 2005 that I can have belief in for this show. Its turned it around big time since he's arrived in late August. Taylor and Jake were major acquisitions for this show and they should be the lead for this show in a few years. The annoying characters at the top like Ryan and the gang are even looking watchable at times. Greenlee's character is watchable when she has fun little moments, but then they write her so far over the top, which is a disappointment. Angie & Jesse along with Frankie have also done this show justice. Overall this is just going to be one hell of a ride and it starts with the tornado in a couple of weeks as we'll get Bianca back along with the major acquisition of Tamara Braun. Only thing still holding AMC back is their camera, its time to go to HD for this show. If you saw Night Shift's new HD camera for this season you know what I mean.

Bold and the Beautiful

B&B seems to have a cloud hanging over them and its the fact that the show relies so much on the catfighting between Stephanie and Brooke or needing Taylor's presence on the show b/c she's everybody's favorite character. I don't think B&B will be able to survive without their first set of characters from their debut in 1987. They have one bright spot for the future and that's Stephanie and Marcus and they're going to need to build a supporting cast of characters around them. When you watch an episode of B&B you're either getting the preferable Brooke Show, which is getting tiring for me or Katie Show, which is a snooze fest. B&B is what is it and they're numbers are really good b/c those their holding onto more of Y&R's audience when their ratings are low.

Days Of our Lives

Until this show makes the necessary changes, I am not watching this show. Chelsea is the perfect example of a character who had so much potential to be the next Marlena and instead they started having her go out with Dr. Way Too Old For Her. That killed her character for the time being. Sammy is a undeserving leading character. This show just doesn't make any sense right now and its so boring to watch. Horrible writing on DAYS, but ratings wise this is a good rating. NBC has to keep this show around b/c they're affiliates have bombed in the ratings during the day. The only shows working are Today Show and Ellen during the day. DAYS is averaging 2.5 million viewers a day and might be able to increase if they're writing improves.

General Hospital

This show is interesting for the first time since last winter. They had a major cliffhanger last Friday and it was so good. Good thing for GH is that they got a 2.3 on that Friday meaning they've got a chance to get either a 2.4 or 2.5 for that following Monday. GH has been hovering close to 3 million viewers since the middle of the summer so that means the audience that they've lost is slowly returning. GH will probably have another stunt job in the works for November so the rating is sure to go up. Guza is on the hot seat finally as the network is not happy about their franchise show not improving year to year. Guza will probably still be around b/c he's Frons' boy. I like the direction of where their going with Connie's family as that storyline between her and Sonny needed some energy as it was so boring before. I personally think the show needs a major overhaul and a better balance in their storylines. Since John Stamos will be a free agent after ER ends it might be time to reprise his role as Blackie for February sweeps. Just a thought!

Guiding Light

This show went away from Remy/Bill/Ava, which really had me interested, but it lost my interest b/c they haven't been covering it. GL is suffering hugely from that new format and they're audience just hasn't returned b/c of it. The good news for GL is they're ratings have stabilized near 1.5 and 1.6 for months and they need to stay there or improve. Hopefully this show is on the up instead of the down.

One Life to Live

Slowly getting good again is OLTL and they had a huge storyline last week. RC has been writing so good, but he kind of slowed down towards the end of the summer after a hot spring. I think he is the best of the current crop of writers right now b/c he writes for quality. The only bad thing about OLTL is they depend of their lead-in to produce ratings and ABC treats them like their red-headed stepchild. I watched OLTL the last two weeks and I can feel another 2.3 or 2.4 performance in the ratings coming their way in either October or November guaranteed. When Starr finally gets pregnant that's going to be a huge event and its odd how she's already showing b/c I still look at Starr as a bratty 9 year old. Man how time flies. LOL! OLTL have kept it consistent although it can be better. I feel OLTL is hurting big time b/c they have a strong audience coming from the Girls 12-17 and ever since they've been in school this show has slipped to last place in that category.

The Young and the Restless

Hogan Sheffer should be the only head writer on this show. Sheffer knows how to write and shouldn't be sharing time with anybody. Y&R is starting to improve again, but the show needs to wrap up those extremely boring storylines. I like the new teen scene they have on the show to get the energy flowing through the show. Y&R's ratings were so disappointing the week before, but they are back to the upper 3 levels. Like I said before Y&R is the one show that can get to the next household set of numbers like 4.0 or over. They're going to need to spice things up big time this November. The potential audience is still there, but they need a reason to stay and Y&R can only do that if they let Sheffer write the show by himself. This was the best week of ratings for Y&R since Sudden Impact. The two 3.8 days were huge positives.

All in all positive ratings week for all the soaps as they show signs of increasing in the ratings. One of these eight soaps will increase they're audience by a million viewers between now and the first week of December, I guarantee it b/c the writing for most of the soaps are good. We'll just have to see as September 29-October 3, 2008 is going to be a big ratings week for GH.

[dragonflies]

People are raving about Pratt, I'm curious what do those same people think of this 24/7 "Ryan is love" crap he's writing?

I don't know why writers don't get it, it's been shown in the past that focusing storylines revolving around Ryan does NOT equal ratings.

Until Pratt learns this, there isn't much hope for him or this show

[Soapsuds]

Ryan use to equal ratings. But not anymore. He has been shoved down our throats so much that fans are sick of him! AMC hasnt improved IMO. Still the same characters on with more of Opal.

[MarkH]

Hmmm...if they ran it on Lifetime and TNT, then that sounds better than I surmised. I watch very little TV, and almost never those networks...so I am probably a bad representative.

Like Marceline, the only way I knew about the ABC ads was through here, in contrast to the CBS ads (though I haven't seen them often), which were in places I have been. (At the very least, this implies some kind of wise cookie-tracking for the CBS ad serving partner). I completely agree about why "Sudden Impact" was such a ratings success.

I regret that CBS hasn't kept up the investment. I'm not saying they have to do it forever, but I'd have invested in a few months of it.

[BlueLick]

I've been waiting for you TMOTVSoaps to write another ratings analysis column, this is probably your best one so far.

I agree on everything and Pratt is doing a great job, but like somebody said before the Ryan stuff is aggravating.

Jake and Taylor need to carry this show down the line.

[Reddi]

I'm really disappointed in the ratings drop.. AMC has improved quite a bit. Still way too much sextet, but it's so much better. I hope the word gets around... and i hope ABC gives it TIME. AMC fans have been disappointed too many times to trust anymore... so rebuilding the show and viewer trust that it's worth watching will take time.