April 20-24, 2009

[brimike]

Wow, there are some really angry viewers/posters in this thread.

[tgilbrea69]

I 100% agree with you. ATWT is by far the worst show on the air. Horrible writing, no stories that make any sense, revolving door of beloved characters, and no plot line that lasts more than two episodes in length (if there is a murder on Monday, you'll know who did it by Tuesday, and then there is a good chance it will never be mentioned again). I have been watching since 1987 and I only record to DVR and skim now. I envy the writing at ABC :-)

[MarkH]

I guess not having numbers to ponder does this .

I confess, I am personally stunned at the DEPTH of the anger at ABC, and at Bibel's column. I'm still trying to process what it all means.

[Sylph]

Newsflash for ya: I'm guessin' it'll mean very little. Or not a thing. Especially Bibel's blog. Either they don't care and don't read it or someone's huge ego won't let them be wrong...

[quartermainefan]

I think it is just conventional wisdom defending itself. I am not sure giving Guza six months with no intervention is a great idea because he has no taste, but I do agree writers should be allowed to write. I don't even like the concept of focus groups and think ABC should abandon those. But really, you don't want Guza or Pratt and their unbridled genius anywhere on your TV. :lol:

They have to be the alltime worst soap writers. Maybe ABC can hire new writers and then give them free reign. Guza should retire though. And this is unpopular so I probably should put this in the other thread, but any soap writer who can't sell Andrea Evans as Tina but writes endlessly for Marty "This actress is so depressing I may commit suicide" Saybrook should think about hanging it up.

[dragonflies]

Where are the daily ratings????

That should tell you something right there, when they start the character destruction of Robin, for whatever stupid reason(my guess is Guza wants to do Patrick/Liz for some reason), the ratings started to fall. When Scrubs are together, the ratings seem good.

Sorry, but there are things on GH that do bring in ratings. I don't know if Liason does or not, but Scrubs sure does. I don't think it's a coincidence that the ratings have dropped as much as they have since the desctruction of Scrubs started....

[Silvia]

Nothing against Scrubs but they don't bring ratings their second wedding with Robert's return did nada for the ratings

[MarkH]

It is THE SHOW, not small elements of it. And even then, nothing happens with out promotion$. And even then, nothing fights the demographic trend that slowly kills them all.

GH, though, is in a special place, because it is currently declining faster than the genre. THAT is danger.

AMC & OLTL...they've actually been gaining/holding stable. From a ratings perspective, like DOOL, they should probably be left to keep doing what they're doing. You know that's how the suits view it.

[Ann_SS]

Mark is right. It is promotion that brings in the viewers when soaps have "events." Look at how they widely the promote Guza's sweep stunts. They do not stick to SoapNet or ABC Daytime. The promos are every where on the net, in the mags, and on cable networks. In turn, there is a bump in the ratings which never lasts. Robin and Patrick's wedding barely got a snippet in a SoapNet run promo of multiple stories. Did GH ever run promos about Robert and Anna's return? I do not remember. I do remember seeing ABC promos for Robin and Anna's reunion which is why I knew to tune in to AMC.

In any case, GH's problem is not the 20% of the show with Robin and Patrick, Nikolas and WasEmily, the hospital, and the Qs. The main problem is the 80% of the show devoted to the mob and its ancillary characters.

I do have a lot of anger about how Guza and Phelps have written GH into this mess. The show has good bones, but it rarely lives up to its promise. I have became even more bitter after Night Shift 2 when I saw how a talented writer could tell solid stories with good performances.

[DRW50]

OLTL had been holding steady, but they seem to be bleeding now.

There's nothing to promote on GH now, because they save everything for the latest EVENT THAT CHANGES NOTHING. What did the toxic balls story change? They killed bit characters. Now they could have done promos saying, "Carly and Lulu are finally likeable again! Tracy and Edward share good scenes!" and that would have brought in more fans than what they did choose to showcase.

All the stories are just a mess. I still have no idea why they brought Natalia Livingston back and I don't think they do either.

[Cyberologist]

I agree.

[Ann_SS]

Yet over the last couple months, there are been tons of promos for Sonny and Claudia's horrible story and now Carly and her pregnancy on SoapNet, ABC Daytime and in the soap mags. Sense the theme? There might have been one promo for Helena's return which was great and should have lasted longer.

[Cyberologist]

I was surprised at their ratings for the wedding w/Robert's return

can't remember if it was the first or second

but it was 2.0 or something...

I never thought that there would be a Patrick and Elizabeth pairing

anytime Patrick has a POV with a female character eg Olivia he did the same thing...

I saw Elizabeth's involvement in the PPD storyline serving as a POV/friend and also as a contrast to

highlight Robin in the throes of her depression, hitting rock bottom

Elizabeth pretty much explained it in dialog during the intervention...

just a friend to both . All he talked about is his love for Robin

....I like friendships on soaps

Re Helena

Is she gone already?

Seems like one of their stunt castings

Wonder what they are going to do with Martha Byrne..??

[SteveFrame]

I always find it funny or even almost hillarious that in this day and age that the powers that be have so jaded daytime soap opera fans into believing that it is all about the couples. And as mentioned the soap opera press like Nelson, Daytime Confidential and so many others perpetuate that mentality too.

It is so funny how it always comes down to if Scrubs were together or Liason were togethen then the ratings will go up or you take Zendell apart and ratings will go down.

It all goes to the Luke and Laura and supercouple mentality that the 80's started and the 90's inbread in soap viewers. And soap writers like Sherri Anderson forced and instilled on viewers even going to the press and saying that at the end of the day she needed to know that no matter what at the end of the day she knew that Marlena loved John and it would always be that way.

Folks it is not couples that ever created the sucessful ratings of daytime. Yes the couples were important - they are a key element. But it wasn't the couples - it was the underlying things with the couples and much of that is what is missing today and is much of the reason why the ratings are dropping and continue to drop.

1) For one soaps have lost their identity. They are not true to themselves. Look at Y&R and Days for example of this. Both shows in the last few years lost their ways and began to bottom out. They drifted from what even modern day fans felt they were all about. Sure Hogan Sheffer and Edward Scott brought great technical aspects to Days but they also made Days into something that most fans didn't recognize. What did fans do they ran away from the show in droves. Higley comes on and Tomlin comes on. Days starts resembling it olds self again. Sure it is not as technically great as it was, but it feels like Days again - not the Days I watched in the 70's but it does feel like the Days that is known to most of the modern day fans. What happens it's ratings go up even without big super couples like John/Marlena and Patch/Kayla. And even without couples like Lumi and EJami even being happily together. Their ratings are going up.

Many of the soaps are trying to be just like someone else or something that they aren't. Fans are drifting from them. Even with the best and most popular couples there, if the show doesn't seem like itself fans are not going to watch. Just look at Days and the EJami/Lumi fans who claimed they were the biggest fan bases in daytime. They were front and center on Days during Sheffer's run, but it did nothing for the ratings.

2) The biggest element that is missing from soaps is angst and suffering. Soaps operas have thrived on angst and suffering for years. And not just onscreen but it has thrived on the angst and suffering of it's viewers as well.

Onscreen the heroine and the couple suffer and wait and wait and wait, but at the same time so do the viewers. Today as stated by others, things happen too fast. One day you have a murder and the next it is solved. The soap ends on a cliff hanger and in the next promo or the coming attractions the end of the cliffhanger is given away.

The reason people tuned in by the millions to see the weddings of Luke & Laura on GH and Steve & Betsy on ATWT and Steve & Kayla on Days was because we suffered with them. We waited and we waited. It was a buildup and it became a big event. It wasn't just the couple either.

It was the stories that surronded them, knowing the obstacles they went through to be together, the happy times, the sad times, the romance, the pursuit, - we went through it with them.

We waited on Luke and Laura to be married for 2 years after the rape. It was almost a year before they actually slept together when it was by Laura's choice. Even when they were on the run together, they didn't sleep together. Their first love making was an event.

These romances played out not as the romance but as part of the overall story and canvas of the show. None of these couples were the be all and end all of the show. They had ramifications on other people. For instance every part of Laura's story from day one affected her mother's story, from the point that Laura got involved with older man David Hamilton, to her killing him, to Lesley taking the blame for her, to Rick getting angry at Lesley for doing so, then Rick sleeping with Monica, and so on and on.

They were chain events - no man or couple was an island.

It is in now way about the couples alone. It is not the couples that have really ever caused teh ratings to go up and down. Sure they are a part of it. But without soap opera being about what it is supposed to be about none of it succeeds.

Soap operas have got to get back to a sense of mystery, angst, suffering, a sense of community, and a sense of identity within each show. Without these things soap opera is not soap opera. And it will not survive. It has not chance.

I mentioned in the first part about the shows losing their identity. IN a broader sense daytime soap opera has lost it's identity. Primetime soaps are much closer to what daytime soap opera used to be than daytime is today. And for that reason I enjoy the primetime soaps today a whole lot more than I do the daytime ones.

[CSF]

Exactly! That 80% is what's running this show into the ground. Anymore, whenever I turn on GH and I just see either Sonny or Maxie or Claudia or Spanelli, I just turn the TV off. It's that group with the rest of the character's they are involved with too such as Jax, Carly, Jason, et al, that leave viewers disgruntled and turned off by the show.