Y&R: Potpourri Thread 2

[Y&RWorldTurner]

WORD.

People have been saying for months that Y&R being so bad is because daytime is dying anyway, and I notice a lot of the same people don't give the same leeway to other soaps and just dismiss them as having a flawed writing regime. How is Y&R any different anymore?

I think change will eventually come, but we can't predict when. I see another ratings erosion and panic from CBS/Sony in the future, and they'll probably use that to oust Maria Arena Bell, Hogan Sheffer, Scott Hamner, and Paul Rauch.

[aMLCproduction]

I just dont get why the networks just don't try a new model. Reduce airing some of these soaps to about 3 days a week, or they should do what prime time does, have seasons. I think part of the issue, is EVERYTHING has been done on soaps. How many soaps have hit the tube? For how many years? (since the 1930's?) And so many episodes per year, the genre is stale and exhausted. Every one is tired. Resources have been drained. Soaps need a break to refresh.

At this point I don't know if I even care. I am just so tired of it.

[MarkH]

Y&R is no different. The place we're at is genre wide, industry wide. Even "resurgences" (like, apparently, Days) will extend the creative and real life of DOOL for a year or two...but the trajectory is undeniable and unavoidable. I wish I were wrong.

For me, this is not a justification but an explanation. I believe key folks at the companies and networks have given up, and this is why you don't see new shows or wholesale repair/redo jobs (thing GH with Gloria Monty) anymore.

[DRW50]

I don't think it's about being right or wrong. I think it's about justifying bad decisionmaking and laziness and incompetency. Rauch did much of the same unpleasant stuff at OLTL that he does now, even though no one was saying daytime was dead then.

I don't believe that CBS jettisoning shows 40 years ago that they felt made them a laughingstock somehow means today that they are going to kill Y&R. I think that Y&R, of all the soaps, is the one that remains in a position to survive if effort is made.

I also don't understand why DAYS is the resurgence brought up, when it was not even a year ago that people here were gushing about Y&R's ratings resurgence. That was certainly credited to MAB, Rauch, and Sheffer. Why is it that when it's time to talk about a ratings loss, or time to talk about the future of the show, they don't get the blame (even though they got the credit for success), and instead it's supposed to be the fault of the genre?

Why can't we just take a chance, and see one last new production team brought in? If Y&R is dead, then what does it matter? Why should vultures get the spoils?

[bellcurve]

But if that were the case, why not cancel all the shows at once and be done with it?

They don't want to give that time back to the affiliates, but they want a lower-cost way of producing the soap. How does that equate to the networks "giving up"?

[aMLCproduction]

Carl I gave this regime a chance. They have failed. I knew since day one when MAB was listed in the credits as HW on her first ep of Y&R it was all going to be bad.

[bellcurve]

Oh give me a break, Stan!

She was speaking of daytime soap opera episodes themselves as being disposable(meaning ran once and then put into a vault), not the genre itself. Notice this question is about the possibility of a CBS Soap Channel!

I love how you're spinning this.

That's Bloom being realistic, not defeatist. She didn't come out and say, "In 2012, there will be no soaps on the CBS lineup," like Zucker did with DAYS. Believe me, if Bloom didn't care about Y&R or B&B, she would have gone crazy and canned them all, replacing them all with game, news, and talk shows. Bloom needs CBS Daytime as much as you need Y&R. She's not out to get RID of the show. If anything, she's out to get RID of that cocky, annoying [unt that can't back up her arrogance with ratings gains nor critical acclaim.

You know, I should really give you my clothes to wash, Mark. You're better at the spin cycle than any local laundromat.

[DeeeDee]

And Maria could have had it both ways.

She could have kept viewer support & kept the suits happy but she was so determined to reap the lion's share of Y&R's success she ended up pissing everyone off.

[dm.]

True. It's a classic thing - a person gets too much power in their hands and they soon get lost and way hungry for more power (thus forgetting what she originally came there for and breaking every promise on the way).

[MarkH]

CBS jettisoned more than Beverly Hillbillies. In the 70s, it dropped several "first-gen" soaps (e.g., Love of Life, Secret Storm) and made room for "second-gen" soaps (e.g., Y&R, Capitol). All the networks have given up on this reinvention of daytime...and that is the more meaningful sign of giving up.

I honestly believe that there are startup costs associated with new regimes that are not sustainable to the investors. I truly think that is the main reason, at CBS, Goutman and the Bells (and before that EW) stick around and stick around. Nothing about their creative or fiscal performance justifies keeping these people. But the era of investment and re-investment is over.

If Barbara Bloom could get 10 million eyeballs to daytime, she'd do whatever she could to do it. But everyone knows that can't happen...hence they don't even try.

MAB and team (specifically HS after August 08) do get credit for rebuilding the 0.5 HH ratings points that MAB and JG lost in early 2008. And they get blame if the ratings have fallen again. But this is all almost trivial. These little ratings bumps and declines pale in the face of the steady, unrelenting, industry-wide year-by-year ratings fall. That has to do with a lot of factors (broadcast TV, dying off of the audience, lack of availability of a daytime audience, etc. etc.)...but it explains why nobody is going to keep investing.

It's like an urban neighborhood after suburbanization. The tax base is gone. The city is now half-empty. The economic investment isn't there. Look at Detroit right now (where I used to live, and on which Time Magazine is doing a 12-month series). Detroit's biggest challenge is that almost no one is investing in rebuilding. Hence, the city constantly struggles. The daytime shows are like America's economically abandoned inner cities.

That is an interesting question. I think you have half-answered it: They want to hold on to the time slots.

The bigger issue is that, as Let's Make a Deal is showing, it's not like there is some low cost option that they can just replace soaps with that will outperform soaps. LMAD is doing okay--holding on to the HH numbers but (as I recall) skewing older. So that's not desirable to CBS. They would want better numbers or at least younger numbers. And they haven't figured that out.

Once they figure out how to get more younger numbers, watch the soaps disappear. Until then, they'll wink out at the rate of 1-2 year (which one is next? ATWT? OLTL? DOOL?), and their replacements will either be experiments (like LMAD) or give-backs of time to the affiliates.

[aMLCproduction]

Just Like LML huh?

[MarkH]

LOL!

LOL again. You definitely get the "win" for cleverness!

This is sooo correct.

I do believe this...I do think that someone could achieve both goals. It's just that so few are...and there is lack of investment/exploration on the part of the corporate types to find such people.

[bellcurve]

Just don't forget the Snuggle softener.

[dm.]

Yep, both terrible hacks. Instead of choosing to concentrate on characters and somehow still bring a little bit plot into it, she just went batsh*t crazy with plot. Nothing makes sense anymore, we're watching almost all characters acting out of characters and it's sad to see the show this way.

[MarkH]

I'm interested, dmarex. Who is acting out of character in your opinion?