Y&R: Potpourri Thread 2

[JimTolkien]

*chuckles*

And oh yes, Sony/Bell probably didn't think they were going to have their licensing contract "contracted" by CBS so greatly either. MAB better get her game together seeing as its "her vision" and all because I highly doubt very much if the show continues to not perform as their acclaimed #1 Daytime daytime drama status suggests...that that extension will not become a "yearly one". Fresh perspective at CBS tends to do that.

[JimTolkien]

You know this sort of interview and thinking just irks me sometimes...I loved Bill Bell a lot, I followed him all the time, I would read things that he wrote but he is DEAD and he is not coming back and we are in the 21st century where technology, entertainment choices and people habits have evolved to a level unlike what we had in the 80's & 90's.

He can NEVER EVER BE DUPLICATED and I am not going to let the fact that Maria Arena Bell has the same last name and is married to his son fool me into thinking that she has inherited part of his DNA. She can never remotely be like him, be CREATIVE as him, be IMAGINATIVE like him, BE INNOVATIVE like him, recognize CHEMISTRY - I have seen enough to tell me that. He made his share of mistakes in s/ls but he thought "out of the box" and took "risks" and he was a forward thinker. She says she has learned from him, what has she learned exactly. I am sure she'a learned something from him, she has shown glimmers of it, only I have yet to see her sustain it for a good period of time. I have yet to see her build on his ideas,..instead she is trapped in the PAST and the stuff she writes for the future are of THE PAST. Get OVER IT ALREADY. Gauging the feedback and public airing of even more of the backstage drama points out that she can't even contain the tumult that appears to be happening on the set...don't care who is the cause of it, what 3rd party we want to blame for it - she is supposed to MANAGE IT!!

I can just bet she is scaring the life out of CBS with the lost ratings/viewers, she was supposed to come in and make this show better than #1 instead I have to hear people including myself thrash this show so horribly and I can't even say it is not deserved. If she wasn't related to the Bell family she would have been gone already...just like LML.

[MarkH]

Absolutely! But I don't think anyone is interested in making first-rate TV unless it improves the bottom line and/or longevity of the franchise. I think, however, everyone realizes that the difference between vomit and first-rate is probably about 0.2 average rating points, and about 3 months greater longevity. That payoff is too small, economically, to warrant a major change. And Sony cares NOT A WHIT about the creative part...not unless it is related to bottom line. That's my hypothesis, anyway.

[MarkH]

I agree with this part. On a ten point scale (1=worst; 10=best) I don't think MAB is a "1" or a "2". But I think she may between a "4" and a "6"...and that is egregious enough. Because, as many of you have noted, for these shows to be managed well and at peak viability, the showrunners need to be at "9" or "10. She's not that, and never will be.

Here I disagree. I don't think CBS cares. Several years ago Barbara Bloom gave an interview saying something to effect of "we have to get out of this disposable programming". I distinctly remember the word "disposable".

Nowadays, the economics are in repurposing...rebroadcasting on 50 million platforms, and rerunning a lot. And if you MUST program one-offs, then cheap game shows and talk shows are the way to go.

Y&R is an aging and expensive property (it wouldn't surprise me if it were CBS' most expensive daytime show), that brings in more old people (advertiser-undesirable) than young. Since the early 90s, it has been on a steady linear or quadratic decline in both households and desirable viewers. All that has happened in a context of decreasing critical adulation (soaps never had much of that, but they have less than ever).

CBS holds on to Y&R like P&G held on to Prell for a long time...as long as brand recognition brought in enough dollars to turn in a small enough profit. But when Prell sales finally got too flat, P&G sold it off to some nostalgia brand house.

That's where we are with the CBS soaps...we're close to them not making sense for CBS at any level. This is the same motive that caused NBC to get rid of Johnny Carson and Jay Leno in primetime, and CBS to cancel Beverly Hillbillies when it was still pulling good ratings. When the shows are flat, and they don't pull in the right demos, they have to die.

Anyone can look at the 20 year ratings trends, and see there is no savior. Even Days, which folks are heralding, isn't pulling 6.0 ratings. It held steady (and is thought to be creatively better by many). That may be enough to buy it another year or two, but we aren't seeing the threat of death disappear.

That's why I say it doesn't matter--not at a corporate level (and that's the only level that matters). The most a "savior" can do is buy another year or another six months. The relentless trend to lower viewership is doing the job...and not a single creative force has been able to meaningfully reverse the trend. Not one, not anywhere, not since the 80s (and even then, the reversals were really only for a few years).

[bellcurve]

Okay, not to use your line, but where is your evidence? I need an exact quote, an exact source. Something other than "an interview."

That's a controversial statement that just simply wouldn't fly under the soap fan's radar. That would be quoted as much as Maria's "My show, my vision" if that were the case.

Bloom KNOWS the soaps are bread and butter of the daytime lineup, whether she likes dealing with the soaps or not. Bloom also knows that without that brand of programming, she is really expendable. Look at NBC, they don't really have a chief of daytime.

I find it VERY hard to believe that Bloom would say something like that. You're either making it up or you're distorting that interview to further your "Bloom/SONY are sabotaging Maria" agenda.

You seem to have it all figured out.

The biggest problem with this line of thinking is that, regardless of whether a 'savior' will be able to buck the trend, the savior may still give the show a proper finale and six months of some of the best story the show has ever seen. And THAT may be worth it to the fans who absolutely detest this writing regime.

Your defense of this writing team is kind of interesting, especially since they think so little of their viewers. They probably think their viewers aren't bright or perceptive.

[JimTolkien]

Now I have to disagree a bit :-)...I think they do care but not in the way that we longtime fans want them to care. I do happen to agree with BB (I would imagine her bosses agree w/her as well) in some sense that soaps are disposable programming because they are and I am agreeing with her from a purely business perspective since I have my own business that depends on making sure that I retain my existing clients but most importantly of all get NEW ones..it is the only way for sustainable growth and not just hanging on. And when I say new clients, of course you have to have a criteria..it's going to be those who have the "spend" and "longetivity". Soaps are not bringing in new viewers, we probably have viewers switching from shows to shows or intersoap viewing..not actual new viewers tuning in. The writers seem to can't write good enough stories for even some of us longtime viewers to remain interested. I am sure the increase in say DOOL viewers is from viewers from other soaps popping in to watch and not indicative of say my 22 year old cousin all of a sudden thinks soaps are interesting.

MAB is not doing enough to give CBS what they want (whatever the heck that is LOL)..it is their network and they are in this business first and foremost to make a profit by entertaining. If the person who is SELLING THEM THIS PRODUCT because that's what Sony/Bell is doing...selling a product..and they are not meeting expectations..let's just say I know of no Fortune 100 public company that performs a service that runs that way. As for Sony, another public company, of course they are going to think about profits..it all goes towards their EPS. I like to call Y&R, CBS's private label brand and that is exactly what Y&R is to them. If the brand starts to fail and lose its lustre slowly you will have to fade it out. Right now CBS can't be happy about Y&R especially Y&R, it is supposed to be their "crown jewel" of daytime so I don't think they deliberately want it to fail or want it to fail. I would imagine their is a "war of visions" going on and apparently everyone is BLIND LOL hence the unevenness of the show. Anyway, I just see them employing the Navy Seals technique until they know what their next move should be if the show and their other soaps keeps up this trend. I guess I can be objective and see both sides in this case.

[MarkH]

Me too. I know I read it...I know specifically the problem with soaps as "disposable" was mentioned...and I know it was a number of years ago (I'd guess 4-5). My guess is that it was in SOD or SOW (not online)...so I'm thinking I won't find it. But rest assured, if I do...I will share it with everyone. I recall in the same interview she was asked about whether there should be more primetime promotion of soaps. She agreed, but said that other interests in the network meant that would be very unlikely. So I think she sort of was admitting that daytime has very little power in the network hierarchy. But this interview could easily have been done within 12 months of her hire in that position at CBS.

I have formed some hypotheses, as I noted earlier. They could well be wrong...but I really think that if you look at in the way that suits (who have the control) might be...it helps understand why things aren't changing and won't get better.

I find it interesting that what I'm saying is being interpreted as defense of writing team. I'm genuinely (no sarcasm) sorry that I'm unable to communicate clearly with you.

I hear you about "proper finale"...I get that. But I don't see what the financial incentive (which is all that matters to corporate) for this "great finale" would be.

[bellcurve]

Who needs a financial incentive when the show's cancelled? LOL.

[MarkH]

You're kidding, right?

A proper finale usually involves bringing back favorites...hires/fires with new costumes, sets, etc. A "proper" finale often costs $$.

If you're cancelling a show, why would you spend $$ on it?

Anyway--and I mean this sincerely--I hope you get what you want.

[alphanguy74]

My prediction is that in 20 years, daytime will be totally dead, filled with nothing but news and infomercials. Prime time will be filled with Jerry Springer, court shows, and game shows... along with a FEW normal prime time shows... maybe 1 for each night of the week per network. The Networks are getting cheaper and cheaper, and their entire lineup will be just go in an ever increasing downward spiral. So after a while, ABC, CBS, and NBC won't be any different from USA or any other cable network. I have to say, what CBS SHOULD do when they decide to cancel Y&R is simply start it over from the beginning, it would most likely pull the same ratings... and they could get the licensing fee for next to nothing. Since a video transfer is the only cost involved. Some say repeats won't do anything... but nobody has REALLY tried it. And soapnet running AW in the middle of the night don't count! Sony has always been short sighted when marketing things. Like I'ts said, Y&R should have a website store with T-shirts, coffee mugs, DVD sets, you name it. But Sony ALSO should put out alot of things they don't take advantage of. For instance, they own I Dream OF Jeannie.... they could sell replica Jeanne Bottles at Department stores, but do they? NO. There's an entire cottage industry of people who get the original Jim Beam liquor decanters and paint Jeannie Bottle replicas for 375 dollars a pop. If Sony mass manufactured something like that that could be purchased for 49.99$, they'd sell tens of thousands of them.

[DRW50]

Mark, using this logic, everything on TV would be canceled. Everything on TV is pulling in lower ratings than it once did, aside from some fringe cable networks that were once in the basement. Even cable networks like HBO and Showtime are below their peak years. And the entire network known as NBC would just be killed as of right now -- hell, some of their primetime shows are probably lower-rated than Y&R.

Beverly Hillbillies was one of a package of CBS shows that brought the network great ridicule. The man who was at CBS at that time (who also helped get Sesame Street off the ground) was ashamed of the Mayberry/Hooterville shows, and probably stuff like My Three Sons as well. That's one of the reasons they went off the air, as much as demos, or more. He wanted relevant shows which spoke to people. That was his priority more than demos. Good luck finding that on any network today.

It's the same now with CBS. Their lineup is frequently sneered at by the elites. All those procedural dramas. No demo hits compared to the likes of Gray's Anatomy. Yet CBS keeps their general style, instead of trying to cave to demos.

I don't believe someone is at CBS going, "Yes, soaps have to die, we need those young people!" That was 10 years ago.

As long as Y&R makes a good profit and Sony is interested and they can't find anything else I doubt the show is dead. They could have easily killed the show after LML left, and used her as an excuse.

In my opinion, the people who have run so many soaps into the ground and are now doing the same at Y&R don't deserve the "daytime is dying" excuse. I don't remember this being used to excuse LML when she was so despised.

[aMLCproduction]

Is Y&R so bad that we have now ventured into talking about the death of television?

Thanks for the info though Mark Very interesting

[DRW50]

People have used this for months to explain away why Y&R is such a mess.

If this is the end times, then that would make those running the show now vultures, so I'd rather they just cancel the show immediately, or find proper replacements for showrunners.

[MarkH]

Okay, I found the Bloom quotes!

http://www.soapopera...s/barbarabloom/

[aMLCproduction]

Alphan guy, Soaps will not be around in 20 years. We are lucky if we got 5( if that)