November 17-21, 2008

[Jess]

I am constantly amazed at that mentality. The "loyal soap fan" is somewhat of a mystery. On the one hand they argue, "if you don't like it, don't watch it." Then they argue against programming designed to bring in new viewers, and then the wonder why the ratings are in the toilet.

The only encouraging development I have seen regarding daytime is Sara Biebel's blog about seven-day DVR ratings. Those were good news for many soaps, particularly Y&R and Days. I found it interesting that OLTL is the stinker in the litter. LOL.

[Soapsuds]

Do you have a link to Sara's Blog, Jess??

[Angela]

The ratings. Expensive Stunt. Short Bump. All New Low. Crazy Stupid Stunt. Short Bump. All New Low. For years. Etc.

My mentality is you can get new viewers without dumbing down a show and showing disrespect to the audience that's been there for 5-10-20 years. I didn't say the loyal viewers are all that matters, but they should matter more than they do. You can't just look at them and say they're not giving me enough of what I want so let me try to get the MTV audience instead (which save a few shows I would think is deeply declining). You can but it's clearly not working. I'm of the schooling that working off the show's history and relationships and making it richer is the best way to go. Sure that may not get ratings either - I agree with you I don't think soaps will survive another 10 years either way - BUT I rather they die with the dignity that brought me into watching soaps 20 years ago (wow it's been a long time, I'm still in my 20s - not 80 quite yet).

I'm not anti-stunts, yes I know it's been a part of soaps since the beginning especially for sweeps periods. I'm anti plot-driven shows/stunts which is what the bulk of them have been doing for years. Throwing money and flash at the problem instead of throwing thought and respect.

[marceline]

Let me rephrase: if these so called loyal viewers were getting what they wanted the rest of the year, do you think these so-called stunts would drive them away? Like I said there's nothing new about sweeps stunts. AMC had a tornado 15 years ago. Todd screwed Marty 20 years ago.

I'm not Jess but here's the link: http://thebiz.fancast.com/2008/11/deep_soa...ights.html#more

[Angela]

No, they wouldn't. It may have come out that way, but I of course don't think sweeps-generated stunts are the only problem daytime is facing. Everything from cable to change in the working demographic to declining quality on the soaps are the problem. In terms of quality on the soaps, I happen to think plot-driven writing and disrespect to a show's history in general is one of the bigger problems serials have these days and the big flashy sweeps stunts are like the neon signs of a problem that's there all year long in a less upfront way.

[JaneAusten]

You know I don't know why a soap should be run any differently than any other business where the mantra is "Your best customer is an existing customer". Well run businesses nurture and care for these customers while still pursuing new customers. It's business 101.

This all reminds me of my former employer who back when the internet hoopla hit, decided to abandon the business model that made them successful to pursue to cool and up and coming internet business. Problem was they totally ignored those customers and they left and the internet boom went belly up and ultimately the company went bankrupt and 10,000 people out of work;. To this day, 8 years later, those customers they abandoned are still operating and running effectively and took their business to someone else while the internet companies all moved onto someone else sexier and more attractive or went belly up.

Sweeps stunts are great if you have follow-up story in place that builds on the action and stunts planned for sweeps. To me this sweeps for Y&R was the best because the drama surrounding the events have all setup stories on this show for the next 3 to 6 months, keeping people who they got back viewing for sweeps engaged for the long haul.

ABC(barring OLTL) has a history of conductng sweeps and that;s it. The last successful sweeps GH ran was in Feb 2007 and it was a lot of action but once sweeps ended, there was no follow-thru stories to the events that occured therefore they lost viewers and continue to I expect. If you want to win new viewers for the long haul, you have to keep them engaged for the long haul. ABC for the most part fails miserably here.

[shawn Perez]

you can't seriously compare daytime viewers to primetime viewers...there's a difference..longtime daytime viewers are soft. they watch for love in the afternoon and not for the stunts. it's been like that forever since the genre started. whereas hardcore primetime viewers watch because of the action stunts on a constant weekly basis and bash the romance aspect. like sons of anarchy for example. a FX series.. it's very much identical to GH. the woman are your typical ride or die. the men are family oriented criminals. sonny/jason. SOA clay/jacks..except on SOA it's a father and son relationship. where GH sonny/jason it's friendship based. the mother who plays gemma has the distinct personality of carly who's married to clay. kinda reminds you of that sonny/carly era. a mobster and his mob moll. jacks love interest is a liz webber clone. she's a nurse that works by day trying to see her man at night whenever possible..most of all. it's successful. to say that ABC fails because the ratings decrease on behalf of the stunts they do during sweeps is pretty narrow minded. you have to look at the facts that everyone who watches soaps are not totally into violence so they tune out oppose to the primetime fanbase who love it. ask 100% of people in the daytime world. the results wont be too surprising. then go over to the primetime forums and ask them do they prefer more romance or violence..i mean i understand that alienating viewers is not a good idea. but like karren harris said in her interview. when ratings are low. things change. sometime for the positive sometimes for the negative. your not gonna please everyone taht's not fans of certain aspects. Y&R seems to be on the higher ground cause is caters to the soap genre audience. it's as simple as that.

[MarkH]

No, there is nothing wrong with pursuing new viewers. From the 50s to the 80s, those new viewers were recruited within the family. Mothers passed the habit--and particular stories--to their offspring.

That trend was broken in the 70s, and reached the current steady rate of viewer loss around 1980. Since then, soaps have been declining (at a fabulously constant rate--no "OJ Effect" and no accelerated decline in recent years). I've realized there is another dimension to the decline that I haven't written about...but I'll save that for another day.

Interestingly, around the time that the negative trend doubled remained constant (1980, give or take), Gloria Monty came to GH. Now, Monty's GH is an interesting case. I have now very carefully studied GH ratings in the late 1970s, and there was a remarkable decline over a short number of years. Viewers were actively turning off the show...so it went from near the top of the rankings to near the bottom.

Monty won new viewers! And she did it in a new way...what you might call "primetime buzz". Incredibly paced, exciting, completely unique stories (I realize that her writers like Marland, Falken Smith, and Racina get credit too), engaging young performers. Her buzz was built in the dorm room, via promotion, and on the covers of major newsmagazines.

But the Monty experiment is fascinating for what it DID NOT do. A scant 8 years later, GH had lost the top spot on the ratings, and its rate of decline was actually faster than most other soaps through the 80s. Since about 1989, GH has declined at the same rate as every other show.

In other words, the Monty strategy to gaining new viewers (not intergenerational, but via buzz and social networking) worked...but it was not as long-lasting as the traditional intergenerational route. In other words, if you're trying to build an audience that will hang on for decades (and I realize this is an arguable goal), Monty's approach is actually not the way to do it.

See how the recent return of Genie Francis had NO effect on ratings. That is because, among other things, the viewers who watched for Genie were not building a lifelong intergenerational habit. They were just tuning in for a short-term college-aged fad.

The implication of my foregoing section is in DIRECT agreement with Angela. Stunts usually dumb down a show. And traditional viewers (the loyal base thaqt sustains a show between sweeps) get really upset about that.

I think you might be somewhat influenced by an ABC bias. (I seem to recall you were an ABC girl??).

See, on Y&R and B&B, certainly up till Bill Bell's demise, I really couldn't tell when it was a sweeps month. So, again, I find myself in agreement with Angela.

If well done, a soap is a LARGELY self-maintaining engine, with viewers dragged along by loyalty and habit (Kay Alden said that, and she was right). You do have to give them flashes of excitement, and those flashes could surely be timed for November/February-March/May...but the flashes should be organic to the ongoing story. In other words, rather than "stunts" followed by maintenance boredom, the better formula is "payoff" (rewarding you for the last four months of buildup of suspense and tension), and "follow-through/consequences". That is how you keep your audience on the boat.

But, of course, the flaw in what I just wrote is that the ratings are NOT self-maintaining. Shows have been shedding viewers at that constant rate since 1980. Part of that trend is death and defection of loyalists, but the other half is non-replacement.

Now, here it gets complicated. Our demographics have changed...there will be no more intergenerational replacement. But, as Gloria Monty's experiment showed, other ways of gaining viewers will not give you a long-term sustainable audience...it will give short term viewership.

What that means, I think, is something we have discussed previously. For the new world, we must stop with the 70 year old shows...and build 5-year shows (or less) that capture the reality of how long you can realistically sustain an audience in the current climate.

The soap opera is supported mainly by folks who have been watching for years (regardless of how good or bad), and will continue to do so. That is the reality.

Luring new viewers is a very tricky thing. How do you make the soap interesting to people who don't know the backstory, and are intimidated by it? The answer is to create newbies with no backstory...or ignore backstory. But that is the VERY thing that p*sses off the loyalists, and provokes their defection.

It is no-win.

The only solution, IMO, is "replacement soaps". It used to be that new soaps were introduced often. From the 50s to the 80s, there were new soaps (often multiples) annually or every few years. Most of them never caught on. But the point is that, like primetime, the networks were constantly trying for the next big thing.

Also, they regularly retired chestnuts (Secret Storm; Love of Life) in favor of new shows. They realized you had to build new shows for new audiences. Y&R was a direct attempt to build a new, younger audience.

The real death of the soap industry came when we stopped doing that. (I mean, we tried...Sunset Beach, Passions, Santa Barbara, Port Charles, The City) But the rate of replacement got slower...and now it has dried up. We're no longer doing what, for the main, used to be essential....regularly retiring old soaps (Irna Phillips said she needed to retire soaps--even at the top of their game--if their logic was "saturated")

[marceline]

That's all I'm saying. Existing customers are a base but you have to cultivate new ones if for no other reason than to replace those who move or die. Even the tobacco industry had enough sense to pursue "replacement smokers" and their customers were physically addicted to their product.

I don't understand why OLTL gets a pass on this. Marty begging her rapist to screw her was the Pulp Fiction of soap.

[Angela]

The more tempermental me would have given you the bitch eye for narrow minded, lol. I guess that's the way my comments came out because you weren't the first to go there but I definitely wasn't putting the state of daytime all on sweeps stunts. I explained that in more detail in the post prior to this. My emphasis was on sweeps stunts (and how they've been done say in the past 5 years or more) because they're what I feel is the hallmark of what the soaps are now doing wrong most of the year albeit in a more dulled way.

I agree. If you're not good at engaging the old viewers for the most part and you can't engage the new viewers for long at all, it's a huge problem and it is indeed a huge problem because most of the soaps have no concept of how to do either anymore. It's a mess.

Thank you

[rangethatrover]

Sweeps stunts are great if you have follow-up story in place that builds on the action and stunts planned for sweeps. To me this sweeps for Y&R was the best because the drama surrounding the events have all setup stories on this show for the next 3 to 6 months, keeping people who they got back viewing for sweeps engaged for the long haul.

Y&R and OLTL are the soaps I watch everyday, and OLTL's stories (despite their controversial elements) also set up longterm stories and ramifications. I still find the show completely excellent- granted we are just out of sweeps...

I think OLTL needs to continue to establish its niche in daytime as an edgy, contemporary show. Its very different from any other show right now, and it is just as good as Y&R with treating its vets with respect.

Y&R is classic, old fashioned soap opera and I love, love, love it.

And OLTL better figure out a way to get those DVR people watching. I'm not watching this show drop to the bottom once GL is canceled.

[marceline]

You are right about that. So if CBS handles sweeps differently then I defer to that. I can't tell you what I would pay to punch Frons in the junk.

The only part of this death pool that leaves me sad is the fact that no one will try their hand at a new soap. I would be so willing to give a new soap a chance, provided it was truly a product of the modern era. One of the things I resent about all this talk of saving "the genre" is that when people say the genre they just mean their favorite show. The genre should be about more than these anemic leftovers. Star Trek was off the air for 30 years. That didn't mean the GENRE of science fiction ceased to exist.

Unfortunately serialized drama is in a difficult state right now. Just ask Tim Kring. And even though Kring has (rightfully) spent the last week apologizing for his unfortunate remarks, (Note to Kring: it's never a good idea to say the word "dipshits" into a microphone) I challenge anyone to say he was wrong. In the meantime, I'm going to keep my eye on he web.

I love comedy and the web - and Eden Riegel - gave me Imaginary Bitches.

I love musical and the web - and Joss Whedon - gave me Dr. Horrible.

So I'm going to hold out for a web drama. (Are you listening Michael Malone?!)

[rangethatrover]

Oh Marceline- you are one of my fave posters despite the fact that I never agree with anything you say! the rest of OLTL was compelling too. And the show has been excellent since Marty "begged her rapist to screw her"...with some of the best acting I have seen in years.

I am finished with apologizing regarding this storyline. It was brilliantly acted, executed, and written.

Offensive? Yes. Life is offensive. Marty has not even begun to get her revenge on Todd. Todd is a pathetic rapist and villian who deserves everything he has coming to him.

As far as stunts-GH is a horribly lit and plot driven bore. Stunt after stunt after stunt after explosion after gunshot after stunt. Yet GH is ABC's "crown jewel"... Blech. Sorry people it is not 1981. GH has not been excellent since the 90's.

Wonder who will win the emmy next year? GH!! YUP. They will probably submit one their sweep "Lets get that emmy even though we don't deserve it" show featuring special effects, ect... Will emmy voters appreciate Y&R's brilliance? or even OLTL's for that matter?

[marceline]

Backatcha! And I mean that with all respect and affection.

As for the Emmys, no one's going to see them anyway so what difference does it make?

[MarkH]

We keep talking about the Emmys...but that's another dead horse .

Ain't gonna be no Emmys! Not in any meaningful sense.