April 6-10, 2009

[miajere]

All that work that was supposed to go into making soaps more essential, more viable, more able to explain the complexities of the people, went to advertisers and executive control... ultimately, when the Internet did hit, they had an inferior product that was not essential enough that they could compete with online. The guys who are running soaps over the last 10 years have to be singular in the manner in which they destroyed their own industry.... they had contempt for their own product. I don't think the internet , reality tv, or cable's superiority beat daytime. The ratings reflect that.

[MarkH]

But how do you explain the fact that primetime fell at the same rate? And that the rest of the daypart (game shows, talk shows, etc.) fell at comparable or faster rates in the last year?

That does not support your contention that the "guys who are running soaps" had anything to do with it, or that the effect is related to the last ten years.

In fact, if you look carefully, you'll see that the CBS soaps have been on a linear decline trajectory since at least the 1960s.

I respectfully submit that the "guys who are running soaps" had very little to do with it. This is systemic, and has relatively little to do with daytime.

[miajere]

Well, I do think prime time can argue options, but I don't think daytime can. There are more shows in primetime compared to daytime, and more shows in primetime now compared to 20+years ago. Of course they're going to share what's in their pot. In regards to primetime, I believe these trends are systematic of any industry/business.

But then I look at daytime, a genre that ceases to renew itself and continues to recycle anything available to them, and I have a hard time believing that the people in positions of power had any love for the genre beyond the obvious. Perhaps I could believe otherwise if we had seen new soaps in the past 10 years, but what have we seen absent Passions.

Perhaps this seems irrational, but I think most soaps are viewed by the execs as the stuff that goes around the ads. Beyond the interference by people like Frons, they've treated them as such, and because of the fear of losing advertisement dollar, they let the quality of work slip, and called it a necessary evil. But I believe these things were taking place prior to what we're seeing today, even when the so-called "good writing" was on.

The viewers started hating the shows for that, and the networks knew their work was inferior. They allowed the internet to sweep in and cite better material. They were okay with cable telling better stories. I mean "Facebook is the new soap"? That's embarrassing.

You're right, it wasn't that one executive or that one writer. But it's because of that I think we're more willing to look at charts and numbers because we don't know who started this downhill slide. I think the charts and numbers are comforting. We see them and say, "this was inevitable."

[Jess]

Hey Mark,

I agree with you in large part. I do think that soaps are dying under their on weight. However, I do blame "guys who are running soaps" to some degree because the guys (and gals) running soaps have had so little vision. Daytime, in many if not all respects, is much the same format it was 20, 30, 40 years ago. I would argue it is not that much different than when soaps began on radio.

As one poster said, daytime now is little more than something wrapped around the ads. Truthfully, I think that has always been the case to some degree. Daytime at one time bankrolled primetime.

Anyway, I think the future of "soaps" as we know it has been known for some time. I think since the early 90s, we have seen it coming. Yet none of those in charge of soaps ever made an effort to change. Daytime continued to hold on to those who said don't blame the fan or there's nothing wrong with a show that has been on for 40 years or if daytime just went back to its roots everything would be fine.

I don't agree with that. It's probably time to cancel many of those soaps and bring something new back in its place. I admit --- and to many of the self-appointed soap expert's displeasure --- that I admired GL for at least trying something different. Unfortunately it just tinkered around the edges. Yes, GL has been cancelled, but really GL is no worse than much that is still on air.

My big disappointment with CBS and GL is that the network didn't take the show out of its misery years ago and second, that it is not bringing something on to replace GL. Primetime cancels and replaces. That is a pretty good model for daytime too.

By the way, if you get a chance, read the book "The Big Sort." It has nothing to do with soap operas or television, but it is really an interesting book. It talks about how we as a society or sorting into neighborhood and communities just like ourselves. It has some pretty interesting insights into what this means for a country that arguably is built on pluralism.

Take care folks and bye.

[Fevuh]

If someone is talking about soap viewership in general, every network has been on a downward trend since the 1960s. CBS launched Y&R in 1974, so that's not entirely true. B&B is the only successful launch of a soap since the early 1980's. I don't agree with people that count Santa Barbara, because it never reached ratings status or longevity of other long-running shows. It may have hit the demo sweet spot but was never near the HH rating of other shows.

There is no replacement for an orginal, which is what Guiding Light is. And if it needs to be put out of its misery, there are about 4 or 5 other shows that will probably be right behind GL.

[CSF]

Those 4 or 5 shows are:

GH

OLTL

AMC

B&B

ATWT

If they don't get their acts together, they will follow Guiding Light. It's that simple.

[MarkH]

Actually, my last analysis suggests they are:

ATWT

DOOL

AMC

OLTL

Surprisingly, on ratings trajectories, I'm not yet prepared to predict cancellations for

GH

B&B

Y&R

Now, trust me, that last three shocked me. I also know that GH dropped to the bottom of the ABC demo...but still, based on a ten-year trend, this bottom three feels like it will survive a few more years. The issue is that their ratings declines are expected to level off (that is already what has happened for Y&R, this past year).

We'll see....

[CSF]

Yeah, I recall your chart. It was quite impressive. I still am standing by the idea of all 3 ABC soaps ending at the same time.