The Suds Report: Dec. 29, 2008

[dragonflies]

Well it's always possible Frons hired Pratt to run the show into the ground(which he is managing beautifully)........

I agree though Kyle, AMC is safe as long as Frons has his buddies at the helm of the shows

[beachbum]

GH and AMC carried the network through the 80's and 90's while OLTL tagged along. IMO, OLTL should be the first one to go

[Cheap21]

yeah thats what I thought. ABC has wanted Days for years and the best time to get it has long since passed. It doesnt seem worth the money or effort now. They'd have alot of cleaning up to do over there.

[marceline]

I agree. Plus if what Sara Bibel surmised from the DVR+7 ratings a lot of people who watch OLTL only do so because its sandwiched between AMC and GH. If AMC goes, that's essentially putting a bullet in OLTL anyway. But this continues to beg the question - for me at least - how does Frons stay employed? How many times can the man switch out writers and producers before someone holds HIM responsible?

[dragonflies]

I want to know what Frons has on the higher ups to continue to keep his job.

[Adam]

Probably nothing. I think its just a case of none of the higher ups give one damn about the daytime division.....

[marceline]

He's the only person in the office who can un-jam the copy machine.

And he sells crack for cheap.

[SteveFrame]

They did in the ratings, but OLTL was always more popular than AMC. The Daytime TV Readers Polls were the big measuring guage for popularity at that time. OLTL was always ranked higher in popularity and it's performers were always ranked in the Top 10 right along GH. Usually the Top 10 performers during the 80's would include 4 GH performers along side 4 OLTL actors. The AMC performers at the most could only get into the runner's up. In the history of the polls AMC actors hardly ever made the Top 10. In fact Susan Lucci was the one actress who ranked often in the Top 10 and in the almost 30 year history of the poll only got into the Top 10 12 times while people like Erika Slezak got over 100 appearances in the Top 10.

So yes GH and OLTL carried them through with the ratings, but GH and OLTL carried them through with popularity.

I have never quite understood why the shows that are high in ratings are often not as popular in polls and stuff. Look at Y&R which has ranked #1 for over 20 years now, but in polls taken Y&R usually doesn't do well.

[dragonflies]

Dang it, now I just spewed my drink all over

[All My Shadows]

If ABC canceled ANY of its soaps, even GH, for DAYS, I'm done. Bye-bye. Hasta la vista! Big slap in the face to over 30 years worth of fans who've watched one after the other after the other. Let DAYS take its diseased crotch elsewhere.

[DaytimeFan]

Here's the thing, 'popularity' (however you define it) doesn't mean a damn thing if the ratings are low. 'Popularity' is subjective and unprovable aside from ratings. Money talks, bullsh*t walks. AMC was the number 2 soap for a long time, GH has been at the top and it's been a steady decline, ratings wise, since the late 80s. The fact that OLTL was well reflected in Reader's Polls doesn't mean a damn thing business wise. Perhaps the editors were biased in it's favor. Perhaps the readers of that magazine were OLTL fans. It's like voting, you might say you LOVE candidate A but you vote for candidate B, candidate B wins, what did all the love for candidate A do? Nothing.

Y&R is the highest rated soap and it's never done well in polls. I'd argue that a big share of Y&R fans don't read daytime magazines or simply can't be bothered. Y&R as the highest income viewers in daytime, perhaps those sorts of viewers think polls are beneath them. Who knows and who cares, it's all about the Benjamin$

ABC owns AMC, if it wanted it killed, it would be. I think ABC still wants DAYS and will always want DAYS because DAYS delivers in the right demographics and THAT is how ABC Daytime is run. It isn't about the total viewers that watch the shows but the TYPE of viewer that watches. DAYS always gets the 18-49 year old and 18-34 year old demos pretty solidly and consistently, that's why Frons wants it. Finally, if DAYS is able to run with the 40% budget cut and still maintain it's demos, the show would make financial sense for ABC.

[SteveFrame]

Daytime and the whole entertainment business has always used the Q ratings too. And popularity does reflect that alot.

you can read more about them here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_Score

I remember Daytime TV magazine in the 90's or maybe the 80's did a big story on it and used to mention certain stars or shows Q scores. Ratings do matter, but advertisers also look at Q scores which are used to determin marketability and the like.

And popularity has a lot to do with the Q score. A Q score has a lot to do with how well a person is known. I remember even in the 80's when Days of Our Lives was not doing well in the ratings many of it's stars had the highest Q scores in the soaps at the time.

It is much the same reason that SOD puts Eric Braedan on the cover of the magazine so much this year. His face is recognizable. People know it.

So yes I agree with you that ratings are where it is at, but popularity plays into it too. A show can build off that popularity into demos and stuff.

As far as DAytime TV magazine being biased. They were the most unbiased of any soap opera magazine ever. Their polls always represented a wide base of things and shows. In the 80's ABC did dominate them more just like they did the ratings. AMC would always put folks in the runner's up category but they never got them that far up into the Top 10. Even some of the lower rated shows put folks in the Runners Up. Even Texas as low rated as it was put them there.

[DaytimeFan]

I'm very well aware of Q scores. They matter, but only to a point. To a network they matter little when it comes to the overall appeal of keeping versus canceling a show. If the ratings are crap the show is canceled. Q scores aren't a salvation for anyone, Angela Lansbury had legendarily high Q scores and CBS still found a way to cancel 'Murder, She Wrote'...

And I didn't mean to imply that Daytime TV magazine was biased. I meant that all soap opera magazines have a certain amount of bias. The fact that their readers read them shows a bias, those are readers who are interested in other aspects of their show aside from what appears onscreen, it skews everything. Polls are the most easily manipulated things on earth.

[dragonflies]

Nope actually it wouldn't. Not if they have to pay fees to even air the show. To give up a show they OWN to get one they have to pay to air, that would be stupid on so many levels. I know AMC makes them money, I can't see Days doing that