All: Changing The Focus Of The Show

[Ann_SS]

I liked Lucky and Sam as a couple. They were fun, flirty and sexy so of course they got no airtime. Lucky and Sam were broken up for no good reason other than Jason must always get the girl. Not that it makes any difference since no woman could love Lucky more than Jason. Ugh. It was all so predictable.

[Gray Bunny]

I'm happy for those who still enjoy DAYS, but to me it just isn't the same show anymore. And it isn't just about losing John & Marlena (Patch & Kayla were never a part of *my* view of Salem. Don't miss 'em at all)... but the whole shift of storyline and the family dynamics of everyone has changed. I'm hoping that Crystal Chappell's return means a renewed focus on Bo & Hope at least. There's just so many 'Who cares?' characters on screen right now, some of them even being semi-veterans (Phillip, Chloe, Lucas) but they're all paired up with the wrong people.

One time GL changed its focus completely was in 1999 when it brought on the Santos family. That, along with the recast of Michelle with Joie Lenz, and ample airtime being given to unimportant characters like Drew, Jesse, and Selena, completely changed the canvas for a good year or two. There would be many episodes where the most long-term character being featured that day was Cassie Layne, who had only been brought on in 1997! Then later in the year with the San Cristobel storyline, the show was basically Reva & Josh, San Cristobel newbies, and Santos newbies. And I think we can all agree that this shift in focus in 1999 was a BAD move.

[DRW50]

The ratings began to really drop during the tail end of Long's first run, I think. Under Marland, GL remained competitive with GH during it's absolute peak of popularity, when many soaps would have been destroyed. Then they drifted down after Marland left, but according to Schmering's book, went up by 2 points when L Virginia Browne brought in Grant Aleksander as Phillip. Then with early Long, they got near #1 briefly.

I do think the endless focus on new faces, stories like Infinity, and the wholesale slaughter of the Bauers did chase viewers away. I can't imagine how many viewers were devastated at Bert's death and realized their GL was gone. If Hope, Hillary, and Mike had all still been there, would they have felt the same way?

[Mary Beth]

Can someone tell me if I'm reading those charts right or just confused? Because it looks to me like GH actually had a stable couple of years there from 2006-2008 while other soaps continued to decline.

And if that's the case, I wonder what it looks like if you throw in 2009 thus far, because it's been tanking fast. Is it just the show catching up with the market forces? Or is it more? Because I know I actually returned to the show in 2006 and was sticking with it despite its usual stupidity until TIIC decided to basically drop or damage almost every couple they had going and introduce a slew of awful new characters and boring stories.

[MarkH]

Later tonight, I'll try to plot them so that they are clearer (e.g., on a "by show" basis).

[Mary Beth]

I would say not to go to such trouble, but something tells me you would actually be looking forward to doing something like that. Heh. So thank you. I've been wondering how to put the GH decline of late into some larger context so I appreciate that.

[MarkH]

LOL. So I'm not sure this is any better, but here are the plots by slap. If this is too small, you may be able to enlarge by clicking on the pic. So what you see is that all the soaps have been in pretty parallel decline, almost from the beginning. There is nothing special about GL...and nothing special about recent years. Sure, there are periods of faster and slower dips...but the overall decline trend is universal. Looking in recent years, Y&R and B&B look much worse than GL because their decline was ACCELERATED (upside-down U), whereas GL's was pretty flat. GH actually has a slower rate of decline right now than it had a decade ago.

[CSF]

Just to be clear on that one, are you referring to 1999 or to the mid-90s when GH lost 1 million viewers in a year?

[tylerbo20]

I think Days still needs to cut some cast that is not needed and bring on characters that can move the show forward...with the sudden cash flow i think reintroducing past characters is a great idea. Justin, Carly how bout Vivian or Jack and Jen. (they might be too expensive but oh well)

[MarkH]

Oh definitely the mid-90s. Sadly, wasn't that a period that many people loved (creatively)?

[DRW50]

The show was seen as very depressing at the time. Monica's breast cancer, Stone dying from AIDS, Luke and Laura's estrangement. The only comic relief on the show was Lucy.

I also wonder if some viewers were starting to sense the extent to which the thug Sonny was taking over the show. The week of what SOD called an "enchanting" remote featuring him, Brenda, and Miguel, among others, the show had a big drop.

[Ann_SS]

I loved GH mid-90s. I would rush home to see the show which I thought was filled with drama and lighthearted moments. Yes, there were serious stories, but there was also Lucy and Foster and Annabelle's doggy romance. Until I read it in the soap mags, I never viewed the show as depressing or knew that it had lost so many viewers.

CarlD2, insightful thought about Sonny. He was the only part of GH that I couldn't stand. I hated how he treated Brenda. I'll admit that his love for Stone and Robin melted my heart a little. I dislike for Sonny grew as his airtime increased and by the time Jason and Carly came along I was onto near hate.

[DRW50]

Yeah, I wonder how many viewers really were depressed, and how many just decided to tune out. The soap press may have only used "too depressing" as a reason. Maybe it wasn't. I had mixed feelings at the time. The quality of writing for the more depressing stories was very high, which took some of the edge off. The only stories I didn't like involved Sonny, Brenda, and Miguel. Sonny treated her like garbage, and Brenda had no chemistry with Miguel.

A few years later, Marlena wrote a column about the Gloria Monty-trained viewers who gave up on GH during the Labine era because it was completely alien to their idea of what GH was supposed to be. Perhaps this was the reason for the drop.

[Y&RWorldTurner]

I got into GH during the Labine era, to me, that's MY era of GH. I personally hate Gloria Monty styled soaps, so I can see how the Riche/Labine GH was so alien to those who liked Monty's vision and why they wouldn't like or be able to understand that type of soap.

The writing was high quality writing, IMO. Some stories might have worked better than others though. But there was humour, romance, social issues, and a variety of other elements that came into play during this era of GH. GH had a real sense of community again, something I felt it always lakced under Monty. I also felt characters were clearly defined and their motivations were understandable.

[MarkH]

Okay, I think this plot is a bit clearer. The blue line is Guiding Light. The green line is the average of all soaps in each season (restricting the numbers only to those of our 8 surviving soaps that were on in each year). The figure shows:

- GL's decline was nothing special. You can see how it is perfectly parallel for the most part to the average of all soaps

- GL, and all soaps, had an essentially linear decline (in HH rating, which I know is a flawed measure, but it is what I have) since at least the mid-60s. There is nothing special about OJ, the 90s, etc.

- I have listed the headwriting regimes to the right. I defy you to find a regime that is associated with PARTICULAR decline. This is just a general attrition of viewers that transcended all regimes.

- There is one interesting "change point". Prior to about 1970, GL was above the mean of other soaps. (Many of the other 8 survivors were debuting during this period, so some of that was that the other soaps were not established). In the 70s, GL was performing like an 'average' soap...the blue line and the green line are pretty overlapping.

- Beginning in about the mid-1970s, GL dipped below average in ratings, and widened its gap below the average until about the mid-late 80s. During this period, GL declined faster than the average soap. Not HUGELY faster...but faster.

- The gap that put GL at the bottom of the soap ratings rankings, then, was in place by the late 80s. No matter how terrific the writing regimes were after that, GL's fate was sealed by the late 1980s. (By 'fate sealed' I mean "bottom of the heap in a declining genre").

- Headwriters who presided over GL's faster-than-average decline in the 1970s/1980s were Marland, Falken Smith, Browne/Palumbo, Culliton and Long. Earlier back, Agnes Nixon presided over one of the all-time-worst declines for this show.

Let us not put these gods and goddesses on our pedestals, I guess.