"Let’s Make a Deal" ratings are up but... mostly made up of older viewers

[bellcurve]

Let me just say I don't want ATWT or any soap canceled.

But at the same time, I don't see the point of putting on one hour of dramatic television everyday, five days a week, fifty two weeks a year if you're not going to put everything into its development.

[Sylph]

Sure. I agree with you. I wasn't commenting on your post specifically, but just in general, this whole thread, this industry... Panic everywhere.

[bellcurve]

*lightbulb*

Got it.

And I agree. There is panic everywhere. But the way the soaps are responding to it isn't yielding favorable results. They're either going too crazy or they've just given up.

[Sylph]

The best thing is... Sometimes it's actually the only way. Just cancel it because no re-shaping will help it. One then thinks: Toldya, net execs, you shouldn't have put it on air in the first place!

It's a d'oh kind of statement to say that soaps would have live longer hadn't they been mismanaged. "Fixing" them means changing how advertisers, advertising agencies, network executives, producers... think. And that's - impossible. Or very difficult.

[MarkH]

The panic is warranted.

Newspapers, magazines, free TV, music...all undermined by the same common variables: easy distribution, easy violation of copyright, loss of collection bottlenecks (appointment TV, large circulations of morning papers) that allowed you to gather large numbers of eyeballs for your advertisers.

So, if the ad-supported model won't do it, look at pay-per-view. But did you see the foo-fa-rah this week about Hulu talking about charging for new content? So much protest that they backed off within a day!

If these folks can't figure out how to get paid for content, and if the cable/satellite companies don't want to pay retransmission fees...I'd panic too. There is no working business model!

[Sylph]

You panicking?! No way, don't kid with me.

[All My Shadows]

Beautifully put. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't make any sense to me. Some people are acting as if GL was a short-lived piece of brilliance that was bullied by the networks because it didn't have great ratings. Why are people failing to remember that this show was on the air in one way or another for SEVENTY-TWO FREAKING YEARS! Andy Griffith ended his show after EIGHT years and he was still #1! Why should GL have stayed on the air at the bottom of the ratings after 72 years? It's illogical thinking.

[P.J.]

One, I called it a moral victory for GL fans, I'm under no illusions that CBS regrets their decision (or would have even if they'd had to cancel LMAD after one week...) to cancel GL. Or that they're not licking their chops in anticipation of the day they can wave bye-bye to the rest of their daytime lineup.

However, I fully expect they'd anticipated bigger numbers with college students. Wayne Brady had to be the selling point in choosing LMAD over Pyramid.

[DRW50]

Watching a TV show, especially as long as some people watched GL, isn't about sense, it's about emotional connection.

I think many people know GL had better days, and was going no matter what. It's not like LMAD was a specific replacement for GL. But I don't really get how it's a shock that some GL viewers don't want LMAD to succeed. I mean I know someone who refuses to watch anything on CBS Friday night because they canceled Threshold. And that was a show which ran for like two months.

It's not the longtime GL fans who are angry about the cancellation that CBS should be concerned about, it's the younger demos that should have been a fit for this show, and yet have not shown up.

[All My Shadows]

Oh, I'm not shocked that people are refusing to watch CBS Daytime because of the lack of GL. I'm shocked that people think that CBS was wrong to cancel GL.

[DRW50]

I think some people will always want to believe the show could have gotten better or would improve in numbers. They'll never know, so they're going to assume that. I know at the start of the year I felt the same way. Looking back, I realize that that was a pipe dream and the show was probably just going to sort of limp along even if it lasted another five or ten years, but I did hope otherwise, for a month or two, when Phillip came back.

It doesn't help that a lot of the soaps are now near or below the rating GL was supposedly canceled for, although that just means those shows, aside from the Frons pets, are going soon too.

[jfung79]

GL was only consistently at the bottom of the ratings after mid-2007 once CBS wouldn't even invest extra in it for its anniversary. GL had clawed its way back into the ratings pack by the end of 2006, despite falling way behind a few years before that. CBS actively killed GL by not investing in it at that point in 2006-2007 when it showed potential for longevity.

72 years is all the more reason that CBS had a responsibility to really do everything it could to save the show, not a reason to cancel it ... 72 years means something has brand resonance and a core remarkable idea ... CBS did not even give Phillip coming back a chance to succeed (less than 2 months is not a chance) before pulling the plug.

Comparing Andy Griffith and a soap - no. Different animals.

Just looking at the recent surge of Days in the ratings, and the recent improvement in quality of ATWT (the ratings will follow), should be proof enough that a soap that has slipped, can come back. Also looking at how many people tuned in to GL's last week shows the potential audience that was out there with the right investment.

[Sylph]

So... Wait. By the end of 2006 it achieved bigger ratings and had the during the first half of 2007 and then CBS gave up on it and killed it. It's all mingled, I can't understand a thing.

[alphanguy74]

I think they overestimated LMAD. They thought the kitsch factor would sell it. But unlike Pyramid, LMAD doesn't have much in the way of excitement and suspense. It's hard to compete with that winner's circle. and that's why Donnymid didn't work, because what made the winner's circle suspenseful was gone (too easy to win, no boxes flipping, no tick of the clock) from all accounts, they fixed all that in the new version, and I'd bet my bottom dollar that they used LMAD for one reason... they could get it CHEAPER. Because Pyramid taped in New York, it probably made it more expensive. The set certainly cost more.

[jfung79]

Yes, exactly, GL was doing better in the ratings based on its own efforts (no help from CBS). CBS didn't invest to continue that improvement. Instead they just kept on cutting the license fee. And that led to the show's demise.

Proof I am not making up that GL was back in the ratings pack after having fallen out of it - November 6-10, 2006 ratings: