All: In 5 years how many soaps will still be on the air?

[All My Shadows]

Ugh, I hate the homogenization of daytime. Someone upthread said that a network wouldn't do 4 hours of judges. Ha! One of my stations already does! My FOX channel does The People's Court (hour), followed by two Divorce Courts (hour), then two Joe Browns (hour), and then Judge Mathis (hour). There used to be another Judge Mathis before People's Court, so that was five hours.

I miss all the 90s talk shows...Sally, Jenny Jones, Ricki Lake, Springer when it was still interesting, and now even Montel is gone. They could be called trashy, sure, but they were all in good fun. And now we have Steve Wilkos hooping and hollering at a brand new child molester or crackhead everyday. Not fun.

[marceline]

Maybe desperation will allow/force that to happen. I hope so. I'd be interested to see the result. The writers wouldn't have the excuse that their audience consists solely of "poor, middle aged, African American women," "old people in nursing homes" or homeschooling housewives so maybe the stories would come into the modern world. But (again more blasphemy) I suspect that would piss off a number of people on this board. I have no doubt we'd be seeing thread after thread of "What about history?" and "What about escapism?" JMO.

That's another reason I really want a new soap whether network, cable or web. Some of us want/need a fresh narrative more than we want need "history."

Or am I not allowed to say that either?

[All My Shadows]

I can't speak for everyone, but I say that you shouldn't feel like you can't say anything.

I want to see a new soap start off fresh as well...something where the writers/producers/whoever don't have to spend a substantial amount of time researching history and character connections and the such. As far as modernizing soaps, I'm all for it, if it's done the right way. I don't think that the shows should be slaves to their own history, but I like for it to be clear that "All My Children" or "As the World Turns" aren't just umbrella titles used for generic soap operas. The right families and characters need to stick around, and the mood has to be unique to the show.

As far as escapism goes, I don't see that as a bad thing at all. I love good escapism TV, where you're not coming out of episodes feeling depressed or down. People may look down upon that type of stuff and call it unintelligent, but I think that those types of shows add something to primetime. I can't stand to watch most of the crime dramas on today...the L&Os, the CSIs, Without a Trace, Criminal Minds, all that...I might watch Special Victims Unit in reruns, but that's about it. Too serious for me. Way too serious and tragic. Murders and rapes and molestations, and all sorts of that. Don't get me wrong, I can get entranced in a good episode of something like that, but I wish there was some good light-hearted stuff on too...something like CHiPs or The Fall Guy, where there's gratuitous car chases and ass-kickings, lame (but still funny) jokes, and beautiful people running around. Something where when an episode ends, it's over. There's no hanging plot lines to go into the next episode, there's no character development over the course of the season. Simply put, I want crime dramas that aren't trying to be soaps!

And speaking of which, don't even get me started on the primetime "soaps." Soaps are not nominated in the comedy category at the Emmys kthxbye.

Oh and the "poor, middle-aged African American women" comment still cracks me up. My 50-60 year old aunts watch CSI and L&O like nobody's business. You could have knocked me over with a feather when one of them quoted "Family Guy."

[SFK]

AMS, that was me who made the comment about the 4 hrs of judge shows, I know, I should bite my tongue b/c the CW here in NY is like that, but I guess I have *faith* (scoff) that ABC and CBS wouldn't go there.

Poor black housewives?? Okay, as quiet as it's kept, black folk don't sit around fantasizing about being rich and white no matter what ANYONE tells you. If anything, they fantasize about being rich and black. Give them fabulous clothes, cars, homes, divas, dons, sex, guns, balanced with the grit, the trauma, the struggle, the perseverance on the other side of the tracks of the folks who are trying to be fabulous or don't give a damn about that [!@#$%^&*] and are more focused on being decent human beings and you'd have the male/female/gay/straight black viewers in the palm of your hand. If you could put Dynasty and The Wire in a test tube and shake it up, you would have gold. How dare these idiots COMPLAIN about lower income black viewers, spurn their audience and make no strides to please them which would only help themselves!?!?

[juniorz1]

As DeeDee would say, AMEN.

Thank you for stating what I came in here to say. I never participate in these threads & I'm sick of seeing them.

Did you know that DAYS aired before 1986? And that it was also on from 1987-1991! No doubt, for real- no lies.

And guess what? I think Y&R would survive without MTS & Braeden, GH without Geary & Benard, GL without Zimmah, OLTL without Slezak, ATWT without Martha Byrne (oops, they are!), and B&B without Flannery. The only one I give in on is Lucci, and that's only because the current AMC is crap and there's not one character on right now that would hold anyone's interest without Erica.

[SFK]

I'll add that a soap airing in the early evening is something that many of us talked about over at WoST for years. Aesthetically, I just think it's something I'd very much enjoy watching especially if it was a darker, grittier east coast based soap. Something about sinking into your 30 min. story at 5 in the afternoon on a dark winter evening is very appealing. I am not an EastEnders junkie, I basically catch it when I catch it, but the look and feel of that show just sucks me in. It's charming, cozy even. GL could take a few lessons, so close yet so far away...

[All My Shadows]

Aah, that's where our tastes differ lol. Well, I get the whole dark, gritty story on a cold winter evening thing...that works, and I'd watch that too. As long as I get some sunny California fluff on the weekends lol Gosh I miss first-run syndication. Nothing gets better than watching "Baywatch" (before it became Boobwatch) on an excrutiatingly hot Saturday afternoon.

I wish soaps did venture out into other time periods besides the early/mid afternoon. If there's ever going to be a real gritty soap, it'd have to be on in late night after the news or something. I'd watch that religiously because there'd be little chance of me being anywhere but home at that time (besides Fridays, sometimes). I would have been ALL OVER a teen-based soap (like Degrassi) that aired new episodes in the early morning, when teens are getting ready to go to school, like 6:30 CT or maybe 6:00. We always watched "Saved by the Bell" reruns at that time and it would be the first thing we'd talk about once we all got to school. I'd love a true Dallas/Dynasty/Falcon Crest-like primetime soap to air in the daytime, on Saturdays at like noon or 11am or maybe 1pm. That would be like crack to me.

[SFK]

I agree to an extent. Until Hall, we had yet to be in a position where our anchor *star* was fired/retired. It certainly won't help. Firing any of the names you mentioned is assisted suicide.

And I refuse to be force-fed Jessica as the next Viki. She is not and never will be Viki no matter how hard they try.

[SFK]

Here here! And now that you mention it, even daytime programming for children has changed! Before and after school we watched tons of cartoons and even live action shows like Fun House and Wake, Rattle, and Roll on FOX and what is now CW. All gone now. You have to have cable to be a kid.

I think a late night soap would be great, even if I didn't stay up for it, I'd tape it. It's always a fun surprise when I'm flipping around late at night and stumble upon Y&R or B&B on CBS when they'd been preempted. You know, if Passions hadn't knocked AW off the block and had been marketed as a zany late night soap you had to stay up to catch, I think many of us would have felt a lot differently about it. I was one of the Passions haters, mainly b/c of the AW thing, but now I sometimes feel like I missed out on some truly outrageous tasteless FUN stuff.

[miajere]

Five years?

Personally, my needs are changing so I don't know what will happen with current soap in the next few years. I'm not quite sure I'll be watching. I'm interested in the idea of the dying soap as it relates to the concepts of sustainability, and I'm quite certain they will go at some point. But my televisions needs, tastes, and standards for entertainment are evolving and the soaps....well, have not.

Looking particularly at the automobile industry in which people are still requesting cars that operate through gas, I have to wonder how hard people will work to cling to what's working instead of embracing a new concept. I'm not talking the Ellen Wheeler module for every soap, but I too would like to see what soaps can transition to once given the ability to stop thinking of cancellation as failure. Familiar is good, and for most soaps, they are familiar for people, and therefore I don't' presume to predict what is out of my control.

"Going out with dignity" isn't necessarily failing unless there are no other soaps ready to take their place. Which is why I don't understand final episodes to these series as a conversation on "gloom and doom" (as the magazines and soap websites have coined them). If GL were to choose to air a final episode I wouldn't consider them any less successful of a show as the Cosby Show. I believe this concept of cancellation stems from the networks- their panic in ratings, recasting and casting, hasty decision making and lack of focus.

In concepts of sustainability I have to wonder why these shows aren't trying to spin people off to the web serials. It could be just as simple as airing that 5 minute clip of 'Life in General' at the end of GH. Followed by "Log on to ABC and check out the new web series."

Why aren't actors being encouraged to submit videos behind the scenes and writers to get online for quick Q&A's at the end of Friday's cliffhanger.

I hate to say this, but I find this genre's attempt to stay on air for the next 20 years pitiful. AT some points I don't think they care about my viewership, and in other attempts appear interested in having me back, if the numbers are low enough. GL isn't the only show I think deserves to get canned for no longer keeping up with basic standards in communication, appealing to viewer interest, and just plain and simple "working their ass off to keep going".

[marceline]

And this points to my issue with escapism! When I say part of what has driven me a away from soaps is the fact that no one works and the lack of well done socially conscious stories, inevitably someone pops in saying they like the escapism of seeing rich, high powered people at big parties, etc...

But any story that's engrossing enough to make you forget the outside world for an hour is escapism. Unfortunately soaps seem to think people only want the Dynasty model.

And that ain't nothin' but the truth!

[Cat]

I think recession means more people will turn to TV and other free home entertanment options to distract them from RL. Daytime can benefit from this. In fact, I honestly think some soaps will. If the content is there.

But Networks also need to understand that watching live at set times that THEY dictate is no longer where it's at. They are just the initial format from which a show is first launched. They need to take into account other distribution formats (DVD, TiVo, websites, downloads) in their ratings and other demos. The Neilsens are outdated. And Obama's campaign showed what one could do when you reach out on the internet.

[juniorz1]

Really and truly, all daytime needs is for Marcy Walker to return to it. She could be the new Linda Dano- crossing over to every show on every network. The ratings would spike because everyone would be talking about Marcy.