Another World Discussion Thread

[Maxim]

Yey! I can't wait to share more moments from Bay City and I'll let the meter go HIGH. As much as it can. 

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[Contessa Donatella]

I can't wait to see this unleashed version of the MaximMeter go into high gear!

[Contessa Donatella]

IIRC Jill got the numbers up just a tiny bit but wasn't able to maintain even those gains. Her two years at AW cannot really be counted as one of her successes. She did so much damage & had so little positives that her net = FAIL. 

If you look here 

http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/1971/12/1996-97-soap-ratings.html

and here

http://www.thetvratingsguide.com/1971/12/1995-96-soap-ratings.html
 

GL has a 4.0 & AW has a 3.1.

This article http://generalhospital.about.com/cs/aboutighi/a/ghproducer.htm
makes the following claim:

  She has also served as executive producer of the Daytime drama "Another World," where she improved the key demographic of women 18-49 by 34%

And, it's been so long since I've seen an about.com article that I had forgotten it existed. 

 

 

Edited January 20 by Contessa Donatella

[kalbir]

 

 

Nielsen Ratings: Weekly Charts: 1996

The weeks Another World finished ahead of Guiding Light:

July 29-August 2, 1996

September 9-13, 1996

tied September 16-20, 1996

tied September 30-October 4, 1996

[chrisml]

Thanks Kalbir. From what I see of the ratings, there's only one week that AW beat ratings based solely on the material on the screen (September 9-13) as the ratings report indicates that the July 29/August 2 bump was due to the Olympics as the next week there was a significant drop. September 9-13 seems like it had less to do with AW and more with just weird ratings bumps/drops (The City also had a huge bump and then a subsequent drop). I don't know when JFP's material ended.

[TEdgeofNight]

Notice the uptick in women 18-49 ratings (the most important demo) for AW during JFP’s tenure. AW decimated GL. Thanks kalbir. It was about April 1996 during Jill’s tenure that AW jumped way past GL in the all important Women 18-49 ratings.

Edited January 20 by TEdgeofNight

[kalbir]

You're welcome @chrisml and @TEdgeofNight.

[Paul Raven]

What do people think Jill did to get those demos to improve?

[Contessa Donatella]

What does Jill ever do? And, why can't she both get numbers up & have them stay up? And, since she can't get the numbers to stay up, is it really worth it when she destroys things, sets, actors, character integrity, kills off characters that the canvas needs, if it were truly worth it then why is she fired so much of the time?

But, what she did was fire people, kill characters, saddle the show with a set not conducive to storytelling, spent a lot of money, the disastrous story of the affair between John & Felicia, no more Bridget, no more Ryan, no more Spencer, bye to the brunette Amanda, by her own words she reached a point where nothing she was doing made sense anymore. And, she said she'd done all that she could do. She also said she got on fine with NBC but not so with P&G. 

 

[TheyStartedOnSoaps]

NBC didn't care about overall ratings - they cared about the demo - women 18 - 49. Jill Farren Phelps pushed Another World's ratings as the top P&G soap for women 18 - 49. Ahead of both As The World Turns and Guiding Light. 

[Contessa Donatella]

I completely understand that. What I would ask you is how long did those numbers stay up? I don'r believe there is any question that JFP got the desired demo up. My question is about its duration.

[TheyStartedOnSoaps]

I believe that JFP made Another World the top P&G soap for women 18 - 49 - and sustained those numbers - until the day she left. Then it just went downhill 

[chrisml]

I remember JFP boasting about improving the demos. She should get credit for raising the demos if it's on a consistent basis. However, I also remember that she came under a lot of criticism for how much money she spent on the new opening credits AND the new hospital set (the set which was pretty much ignored once Savitz took over). In looking at the demos and the ratings, I'm not sure all that money was worth the investment despite the increases in the demos. And if the demos were all P&G cared about, JFP would have lasted longer. 

Was JFP responsible for the rise in demos? Partly, but I don't think any one person or one thing was solely responsible. It could also be that DAYS was doing so well. ( AW should have been doing much better in the ratings and demos with DAYS as the lead-in before JFP, during JFP and after.) It could be that other soaps in the same time slots were telling boring stories and sampled AW.   Are we going to say her early winter material was awful because the demos were so low? Or were there other factors at work? I'm not going to blame her for the low demos here because again so many things could be at play.

What do I think JFP did? I think she did what she normally did. She used violence against women. When she went to OLTL, she got the demos up by killing off Georgie. She got immense criticism then for the violence and for the racism in the storyline. She moved to GH and that was non-stop violence against women (where network had step in and demand rewrites/edits). She moved to YR and she was going to EP a storyline so disgusting (Avery lying about being raped) that the network had to step in and force rewrites).

[Contessa Donatella]

I'm not sure, but my impression is that it was NBC not P&G that was so into the desired demos.

I just clipped a post in the 90s daytime ratings thread that relates. 

On https://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/topic/58300-ratings-from-the-90s/page/4/#comments

Errol said

The best ratings I believe JFP’s OLTL got was the Georgie Phillips storyline. Those demos, IIRC, were so good the show was topping GH consistently. Again, that’s why she got the GH gig.

The next time OLTL started doing that again was ironically when it got canceled under Ron, which is why despite canceling the show itself the network extended the contracts of Ron and Frank which later led to them both getting GH. 

What were those GH stories? Interested.

[TheyStartedOnSoaps]

NBC was thrilled with JFP numbers, but it looked bad on P&G that Another World had higher demos than their jewel in the crown ATWT. It is embarrasing that more women were tuned into Another World than As The World Turns from P&G stand-point. I'm sure they were fine with AW having high ratings, as long as it was always behind ATWT.