November 3-7, 2008

[marceline]

That's how I feel about OLTL. I won't say there's nothing they can do because AMC brought me back and I never thought that could POSSIBLY happen. The difference is that I left AMC out of boredom and I left OLTL out of anger. I honestly can't imagine ever watching OLTL again.

[miajere]

Not to be cheesy, but I almost cried today watching Y&R....It is so beautiful, it's like LML was never there.

The dialogue, interpersonal relationships, characters, my interest in everything on the canvas regardless of how I felt about them in the past.....This is a soap!!! It's not contrived, scandalous, and doesn't seem ratings hungry....I don't care how the numbers look- it's like a fine wine compared to every other soap.

[MarkH]

I hear you, but OLTL was a work of art. I gasped!

[DaytimeFan]

Y&R has been pretty beautiful this week. I have seen Monday's show and let me tell you...it's sensational, probably one of the top 5 best episodes of a soap I've ever seen, it's flawless. Two of my staff took an hour and a half lunch, the hour to watch the show and half and hour to dish about it. I did 'charting' for an hour as well.

It's got a ton of sadness, a little humor and such depth. It seemed so real...this is a show that said, essentially, F--K the Nielsen ratings, we're going for quality. I think, in the long run, it improves the brand and perhaps the value of the show across different avenues of distribution.

LML alienated a helluva lot of viewers that are never coming back, by the end of her run she was dipping into the 3.?'s from time to time. MAB and Josh Griffith did the show no favors as they tried to salvage the mess with uneven results. The show only really began to turn around this summer. That was the turning point.

It's inexcusable that CBS hasn't promoted this, I don't care about Bloom's budget, sell something Babs! Sell some of that hideous butch jewelry you wear, sell your computer, I don't care, just do it! And while we're at it, why doesn't Steve Kent just buy some ad space with some Sony money!

It's true, ratings don't reflect quality...but if ever there was a time when an exception should be made...THIS is the time. Y&R is as good as it's been in 10 years. It's absolutely as good as Kay Alden's best day and is comparable to Bill Bell. MAB, HS, SH and PR should be commended. This week has been SOAP OPERA at its finest.

[boldfan01]

That's good to hear. I've been enjoying the show a lot over the last few weeks, and especially this week. It sounds like next week is more of the same.

But it may not just be a question of money. Even if Bloom can crunch her numbers to get the extra money to spend, how far can she spend it when she has to pay the ad rates charged by Les Moonves and the CBS top brass who control the ad time for prime time? Unless they cut her a break and charge her less than they would the standard advertiser - which they both can and should do in a case like this - whatever money Babs scrapes up may not go very far. So looking at it that way, there isn't a lot Bloom can do, but that's not true of CBS as a whole. And Kent would probably be in the same position. SONY gives him his budget for the show, and he probably has to go to the SONY higher ups for the OK to spend above that for something like this which isn't part of his normal costs. Just because you're a division of a multinational giant doesn't mean you can just snap your fingers and tap their bankbook, and his bosses might not be willing to fork up that kind of cash given that their license fees from the networks for the soaps are shrinking and the soaps are cutting costs left and right.

It's kind of a catch-22. You have to spend money to make money, but those who can authorize the spending are afraid to do it. And with daytime ratings as low as they are, the bigwigs look down on daytime and can't see how spending that money might get a rise in their daytime ratings, even if it won't be anywhere near the levels of the past.

Between them, MAB and PR have everyone doing their best work right now, from the writers to the directors to everyone else down the line. Part of the problem with LML was that other than her short stint at PORT CHARLES, all her background was in prime time, and most of the people she brought to the show came from that world. But turning Y&R into KNOTS LANDING on daytime didn't work. In the beginning, she still had Alden, Smith and Scott to help balance the prime time sensibilities she brought with her with the show's daytime roots, but that dwindled as she let that core staff go. Now, Y&R is getting back to its identity, and that shows in what's on the air, even if it doesn't in the ratings.

[shadow]

I am not sure why LML is in anyway a factor in the low ratings Y&R is getting, that falls clearly on MAB, because these are her stories that n have been playing out for almost a year. The ratings were kinda high for Y&R in the beginning of the year, but once MAB took over after the strike, the ratings have slowly decreased into record low territory

[Soapsuds]

Y&R- I am surprised the ratings are low. But the Victor story has just dragged for too long. Who cares if he comes back to Geona City? Nikki needs to forget about loser Victor. The storyline is boring. Not even the great Eileen Davidson can save it!

Yay, ATWT went up but is still in 7th place...LOL...those hacks never learn...LOL.

[miajere]

I don't think Y&R is interested in bringing in millions of new viewers- they wouldn't protest- but they seem more interested in keeping the one's they have- and that's a step in the right direction. I was content with OLTL this time last year, but they seemed interested in going back to the old days and making dents on the car of history, which made me feel they were pulling one of those "our real fans" kinda moves. Of course Y&R has some boring days and story lines I'm not into, but I don't FF- more like I roll my eyes. They use the history- but they haven't repeated it in the same way OLTL seems to be doing- maybe it's because they only use it for their stronger veteran actors. I could watch Erika Slezak with DID all day long.

They start getting concerned with the View and they will start to have problems.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

Y&R deserves to get a bump for the episodes that aired this week in next week's ratings report. The show arguably had its best week in a few years.

The show is gelling again, and the production is great. Yes, some storylines are better than others, but that's always going to be the case.

However, again, I wouldn't be surprised if ratings don't go up. There's no a rhyme or rhythm to the what makes the ratings go up or down.

All I know is daytime ratings will never be what they once were and we need to accept that.

[MarkH]

I actually agree with you.

I guess the theory is that LML so weakened the audience tolerance that viewers were already flying out the windows by the time MAB came along. Then, when her repair was "slow and steady" through Sping 2008, frustrated viewers couldn't take it any more and started defecting.

But the fact remains the latest low plateau was hit during MAB's reign, NOT LML's!

You're right. But the industry must start counting differently. Same day live Neilsen's for broadcast only make no sense any more...not for ANY kind of entertainment.

That said....if the show STAYS good (I'm talking for 6 or 12 months) AND (big AND!) if the promotion follows the quality (that has not happened so far) viewers will come back.

The lack of promotion is galling.

I'm guessing a big part of the defection, as with Shemar, had its foundation established when Rowell was allowed to leave. Folks might have waited half a year to leave, but eventually they level. I haven't seen any demos by race/ethnicity, but I wish I could.

Now, we have a MAJOR icon returning (Olivia), but she gets no story, and she gets no major promotion. HUGE mistake.

If they don't invest in an EXTENDED period of promotion (CBS Primetime, and on cable networks...not print, because that is dead....but maybe banner ads), all is for naught. That frustrates me to no end.

[miajere]

The promotions for Y&R use to be amazing as they were aired throughout daytime and into primetime. I wouldn't mind seeing a line up of CBS with its returning cast members added, and some of Y&R's favorites up front and center. I would love to see Y&R do something great during the holidays. Something that will catch the attention of people spending time with family and have stopped watching the show for whatever reason.

But I think it was great that they aired the Price is Right during Primetime- it had to catch some people's attention- even though I never saw the ratings- with that show missing its key ingredient Bob Barker- I have no doubt that many have turned to the view.

[TMOTVSoaps]

Yeah, I agree this is great news for its survival and its really important if soaps have stability now in days. DAYS has done a great job as of late maintaining over 2.0. Its bound to get back to 2.2 or over if the good writing as of late keeps up.

Guys I wouldn't be surprised if we see Y&R go up big time next week as this past week was the week that featured the best of the storylines and I'm pretty sure word of mouth would've gotten viewers watching this past week. Y&R goes way up and down anyways.

[BlueLick]

DAYS has been so exciting as of late, this is the best its been in months. The Nick s/l is going to really heat up this week as I saw NBC promo it for the first during Sunday Night Football and alot of other hours this week. The promo was really done well and it should be interesting to watch this week. DAYS has done a great job stabilizing in the ratings. DAYS is the first of the 8 remaining soaps outside of GL to go under 1.9 and it has grown above that since August. Its the only soap to be consistent in its ratings during the month of October and early part of November. I'm expecting big numbers for the week of November 17-21.

Y&R had a huge cliffhanger the Friday before so I'm expecting a big number for last Monday to help the show go way up. If Y&R does good then the whole CBS lineup does good so its important for them to be this good right now especially since The Price Is Right is not the ratings drawer it once was when Bob Barker was doing it.

Applauses go out to ABC and AMC this past week. AMC is up in viewers year to year by close to a million viewers since the tornado started, which is a huge positive for soaps now in days. The demos for AMC are on par with last year so the show is still making money for the network. HH ratings are going to be a struggle to go up, but at least AMC got their first 2.2 in a long time. To me its more important for soaps to improve year to year than it is to go up to a 2.4 one week then drop back down to a 1.8 or lower. The key for AMC right now is to hold onto the viewers they have right now with keeping up the good writing and eventually those viewers that left, which are called casual viewers will comeback. There are casual viewers who probably haven't even seen the tornado s/l and may return later on next year if they find out the show is much improved consistently.

OLTL is even up year to year compared to this frame in sweeps from last year and getting a healthy 1.3 in the main demo.

GH is still getting solid ratings, but it is down hard year to year, but I believe GH has to start doing more than having good episodes during sweeps and be consistently good in writing in non-sweep months.

These next two weeks for the soap ratings could see the soaps improving big time as every show right now is awesome for the casual viewers to watch. Some soaps are creatively doing better than others, but still this is an important month for soaps to make some extra money.

Next sweeps period is in March and DTV is going to bring the ratings way down starting in February.

[MarkH]

When it comes to ratings, I am all about "the trend".

So, the week-to-week ratings are less interesting to me, except insofar as they speak to the larger trend.

Below is the SON/Toups' ratings from the first week of the year (beginning 12/31/07) through the present, in summary form. I did this table on the HH ratings, but you get pretty similar results if you use the # of viewers. I realize the 18-39 female demo is the important one...but I'm more interested in the total eyeballs watching soaps.

I started thinking about this in reaction to Roger Newcomb's post on Friday, where (in the process of chiding SOD for their endless Victor covers) he said, in effect, Y&R lost the most viewers in the last year (800K), so why over-promote that show?

I replied at his blog and in mine, but I really wondered about the true declines for all soaps this year.

So, in the table above, I looked at the highest and lowest HH for each show. I take this as the much more useful index of decline, acknowledging that the minimum may be a point lower than the "usual low" for some shows. But still...

Suddenly, it gets hard to say "one show declined more than all others". It is true, in absolute viewers, Y&R lost the most, but if you look at % loss, the real losers are ATWT, GL and Days, with Y&R and GH in close behind.

(Now, Days and ATWT have both rebounded a little from their lowest ratings of the season...but in general I believe each show's minimum is a good reflection of where they are headed).

This is gasp-inducing. Pretty much 20-25% (1/5 to 1/4 of the audience!!!) losses across the board!! In that context, the relative preservation of AMC/OLTL is interesting...and makes one wonder if those shows have bottomed out, and have reached a stable minimum.

Now, elsewhere, I have said that the encouraging news from Soapnet, DVR viewing, and (I surmise...no numbers) online viewing suggest that these free-falls may not be quite as bad as they seem. Some of it may represent a movement away from broadcast.

But, with these numbers, our broadcasters and producers need to do a MUCH better job of following the people, and showing us where the people went. Because these numbers sure look like monotonic, unfettered decline!

With a quarter of the residual audience lost in a year, is it ANY WONDER that the networks have no interest in showing the Daytime Emmys anymore??

[MarkH]

One more ratings-related post.

I thought it might be useful to look at the linear decline trajectories in the soaps this year. These are based on the maximum - minimum figures from my last post, averaged over the 45 weeks of season-to-date.

If you look at the raw ratings falls (first graph), it does look like Y&R experienced the most loss (and they did...in absolute terms).

The second graph may be more meaningful, because it puts all the shows in a common metric, and shows the decline from their 2008 high proportionally. If you can get over how appalling the overall slope of ALL the lines is, it sure makes you want to be AMC or OLTL .