October 26-30, 2009

[marceline]

I think the mob gives GH a definite identity at a time when soaps have become increasingly homogeneous and that appeals to offliners. GH is the "mob" soap not just on ABC but in the genre. I think that's good. What other soaps have such a strong identity? OLTL is the "gay" soap. But all the other soaps that had something unique are gone. Passions was the "supernatural" soap and GL was the "soap that looked like it was shot in your cousin's backyard" (It's a shame PC isn't around to be the "vampire" soap because I bet it would be kicking ass.) The rest of them are fairly interchangeable.

[DRW50]

That identity only attracts a certain audience, which has been narrowing. They've lost somewhere around 500,000 viewers in the past year, haven't they?

If this big Claudia reveal couldn't get the numbers up I'm not sure how much of a mob presence is still drawing viewers.

[JaneAusten]

I guess if targeting a specialized niche is what you want then you are correct. But it then no longer becomes appealing to the main stream just a segment of the audience interested in that. Perhaps that's fine and coincides more with the selective/niche type of programming you see on cable TV

I see Days being in the mainstream category along with Y&R and neither seem to be hurting but perhaps ABC is satisfied with this niche and figures that's why they may have more longevity than some of the others. But mob centric programming has really been off the trend for sometime. So as the fascination with mob television dwindles(Would The Sopranos still be popular) will their audience continue to erode.

I think at the time GH really started heavily focusing on the mob, Scorcese films were hip, there was The Sopranos ever Wiseguy at one time that were all trendy and popular. That popularity is no longer and perhaps thats why the audience has dwindled.

[shawn Perez]

i dunno but we just found out that GH added a new writer to join the writing staff this week. Dave Ryan who wrote wednsday episode. the guy got rave reviews from diffrent magazine sites for that one episode. Everyone was copvering up claudia's death and the aftermath of buring her. it was some pretty intense material.

[Ann_SS]

Being a mob soap cannot save GH. I don't think that having an identity can save any soap. Women are not at home during the day and when they are home, there are tons of other shows to watch. They are watching something else and I'm betting it is Law & Order reruns. I know I watch Law & Order reruns over GH a lot of the time. Law & Order has better acting and writing, plus I get to see the bad guy get locked up.

[JaneAusten]

GH's script writers have never been the issue IMO although it's still anti female writing. It's the storylines that suck. I found today to be pretty dull, Yesterday was pretty sick. The only thing that saves any of this story was Sarah Brown. She kicked it into high gear the past couple of weeks and saved GH's arse if you ask me. She deserves 100 percent credit for any bump they might have gotten. All the rest of the actors and actresses were bad to mediocre. KeMo I have no idea what the heck she was doing this past week. LLC is naturally a poor actress, and LW didn't wow me but she was the best of the actresses aside from Sarah. Mo, Steve, Ingo all stunk. BB and DZ were not bad and the kid who plays Michael was pretty decent.

[marceline]

There is no "mainstream" anymore. The closest thing to mainstream we see now are the procedurals like CSI, L&O and the others. Those shows aren't so much mainstream as generic. A "perp", a "vic" some violence, some sex, a graphic autopsy and a cop/agent who ends up Taking It Personally.

Daytime might benefit from more "niche" shows. Niche shows have been good to cable. A niche show that serves its audience like a True Blood or The L Word or Battlestar Gallactica do a lot of good for their individual networks.

Nothing can "save" these current shows. Nothing. Not James Franco, not a mass gay wedding, not Miss Kitty. Soaps can't compete with daily showings of L&O or ER but perhaps they can LEARN from them.

[DRW50]

The problem with some of those shows is they are a niche of a niche of a niche. They have very specialized audiences, and even then, The L Word seemed to lose favor with a lot of fans quickly. They benefit from lower expectations of being on cable.

I don't know if things are that non-mainstream now. You have a few shows that get endless media attention (The Hills, Jon and Kate, Real Housewives). They live on the media attention even as some of their actual ratings are small. They can afford small ratings because they are on cable networks. And you have other shows that get tons of media hype and attention, like Grey's, which are as predictable as any other medical drama or soap ever on TV.

I'm not sure if soaps aren't going to be able to live based on that attention. Passions got tons of media attention and was prized as a niche show, and still couldn't survive. PC got tons of praise for moving to a niche format, and still couldn't survive.

I think soaps need identities of being watchable entertainment with stories that can get you hooked. That's probably the only way for them to get viewers and keep them. The stunts eventually falter. That's why GH has fallen in the ratings, and now barely ties OLTL, a show that has always and will always be seen as of much less value to ABC.

[marceline]

A niche of a niche of a niche. A specialized audience. They lose favor with a lot of fans quickly. Lower expectations.

You just described soaps.

[shawn Perez]

you wanna talk about Dull. today i watched DOOL and the acting was straight horrible, why was carly screaming at a dead ghost like that? overacting much? besides GH is known for having a fantastic cast so all this hate on the actors performances is shellow because you hate the fact that GH isn't you're cup of tea. SJB as great as she is. did not make up a percentage of why people we're interested with the show. that's like saying the reason why DOOL is high up on viewership is because most of the actors on that soap are ex-passion stars. it's easy to argue that fact. passion was cancelled so the fans we're probably curious to watch there favorites on another soap. it wouldn't be that hard to garner 500-000 gains from just hiring a few actors from a soap and then writing them exactly the same way as if they never left. Ethan.ie" Brady" Theresa.ie"Adriena". Luis.ie"Rafe"...you get my point?

[Ann_SS]

marceline, you mistakenly put my name on Carl's quote in your last post.

[Ann_SS]

Who is this "GH having a fantastic cast" known to? I see that statement repeated all over the soap boards and never on the screen. GH's two leading romantic men who suck up all the airtime, Steve Burton and Maurice Benard are the worse actors.

[JaneAusten]

What good did those niches do for Passions or Port Charles. They both had low viewership and got cancelled. Passions was even moved to Direct TV and couldn't survive there either.

ANd I will argue as to why Y&R, B&B, and Days are the top 3 when none of these 3 really have that "niche" being referred to. The mob soap is in 5th place and the Gay soap in 6th place out of 7 soaps. And Days. Y&R, and B&B have more online and/or international viewers than the mob and gay soaps do. Not sure what the answer is.

[DRW50]

Not as much. If soaps lost favor with a lot of fans quickly, they would have left the airwaves decades ago. If the networks had not worked so tirelessly this past decade to chase fans away, in their desperation to be like primetime or cable, then the ratings might be higher now. I wouldn't say soaps have lower expectations. It's just that they were once big performers and the networks haven't replaced them yet. We seem to be in the process of most or all the soaps being replaced.

The main "niche" soaps fall into are the melodramatic problems of characters. You can do anything else if you want to with a soap.

The soap which best fills that term, which just tries to tell melodramatic, slow stories about a group of friends and family, DAYS, is the soap that has gone up this year. GH, run by people who still long for the Sopranos, and which often seems ashamed of the soap format, should be the definition of a niche show in a time when niche shows are supposed to be taking over. Yet the show is losing viewers, and nothing is getting them back.

[JaneAusten]

Days is dull? To each his own. When I see GH's ratings consistantly rising over months as Days has then I'll talk about which show is more appealing to the mass. Obviously someone likes what Days is doing otherwise they could not have gained 500K viewers in the past year.

Fantastic cast on GH? Who would that be. I loved GH at one time but the darkness and overwhelming bad writing for women is a turnoff. And great acting. I don't even like Sarah Brown and I can acknowledge she wiped the floor with everyone else. MB hasn't been decent since things have gotten cushy for him at GH years back. When Brenda was still around, Mo wwas great. Steve Burton is atrocious. Ingo has been just awful in this sweeps. JJ - too early to tell he seems the same - good. Tyler Christopher is horrendous and is the laziest most lackluster actor on that soap. Tony Geary shows up in scenes occassionally, not enough.I still don't get all his hype. The actresses are the saving grace on GH but side from Sarah, the rest have failed big time for sweeps so far.