How soaps dug their own grave

[David V]

The cancellation of Guiding Light this year was not totally unexpected, much as it was sad. But it is, more than the cancellation of almost any other soap, an act that is powerfully symbolic because of the historic status of the show.

But the decline and death of Guiding Light, as much as anything, encapsulates exactly what has gone wrong with Daytime over the last two decades. The gross mismanagement of the show through the 1990s (although this was shared with AW and ATWT) and disgustingly bad decisions ranging from the death of Maureen right through to the Carruthers storyline. They just encapsulate everything that has and is going wrong with our beloved genre and why the very existence of this genre is now threatened.

And really, the real reasons why the genre got into the state it's in can be explained far more than by changing socioeconomic trends. It's because the PTBs have dug the graves of their shows over a very long time.

They've ceased striving for respectability

Daytime, once upon a time, strove for higher standards. And shows like Y&R, AMC, AW and ATWT at various times (among others) strove for respectability beyond Daytime through relatable, and often socially relevant storylines. That's why Y&R with its realism managed to rise to the top and stay there for many years- and storylines like the Olivia/Nathan/Keesha AIDS storyline and Cassie's death showed that because they were storylines touching issues people deal with in real life.

The way people watched their shows changed as a result of the supercouple phenomenon. It led to the creation of rabid fanbases virtually holding the shows at ransom, fans who watched for their favourite characters and couples rather than the show. While wacky, far-out storylines existed on soaps, from the 90s onwards they became the rule rather than the exception. Soaps became incredibly short-termist as this sort of thinking spread through Daytime like cancer. So instead of striving for excellence, they've striven to become eve more stupid.

They've insulted viewers' intelligence

To tie in with the above, Daytime has insulted the intelligence of fans, and the soap fanbases are unique for having the memories of elephants. The constant undoing of history and insulting intelligence by stupid storylines, returns from the dead, and hiring eye candy rather than real actors all contributed to the alienation. Above all else, they became obsessed with a particular demographic, tailored their shows to suit, and resulted in insulting the intelligence of the said demographic.

Furthermore, soaps have lost their air of unpredictability that had viewers in suspense. These days it doesn't take much to figure out what happens. Whereas once upon a time you could be left in suspense and get years' worth of stories from something.

Even more, they've failed to learn their lessons from Primetime. Sure, there's garbage on Primetime too but there's still much quality drama. But Primetime TV in general still strives for betterment and to be taken seriously by viewers and critics. Daytime just gave up. The most successful Primetime dramas usually don't hire actors for their visual appeal to a tailored demographic, they hire them on the basis of their suitability and talent. Heck, a show like Ugly Betty is the exact OPPOSITE of what Daytime has tried to do in recent years.

So there you have it. The IICs have nobody to blame but themselves for the mess they're in. And enough people agree with me, because more people have left Daytime in the last 10 years than in any previous decade.

[classicmoment]

Is all you had to say IMO. Mismanagement is definitly at play but fans, the creative heads, and the network all have contributed in some form or another. Let's face it daytime as we (some of us) know and love it is done for. I'm beginning to think the current "creative mind's" contemporary interpretation of these classic characters are really just off the wall ideas of fans who think they have a clue. Alas, The Bill Bells, Irma Phillips and Agnes Nixons are no more

[jfung79]

You blame TPTB and yet you also say fanbases held the shows at ransom. Which is it?

[Sylph]

Both.

[jfung79]

So soaps did not dig their own grave then, the fans helped.

[Sylph]

Yes. The title needs to be corrected.

[dragonflies]

I think fans were a very small part of it. I think it's more that there are people in charge of the genre who just don't give a crap about it. That's the problem there. That's what led to soaps' downfall

[marceline]

It's just a matter of time before someone yells at you for posting this but I think you've made some excellent points. I wonder about the fanbase angle however. Primetime shows have plenty of shippers who are just as rabid as any in daytime but they seem to handle it better. Not all of them obviously. LOST and Bones are two shows that have made terrible decisions in the name of shipping.

But so-called supercouples have always been a part of the soap landscape. I think that with the internet we've seen that a.) sometimes supercouples weren't as popular as we assume and b.) a vocal fanbase doesn't mean a large one. Unfortunately with the audience getting smaller, vocal is sometime enough.

[All My Shadows]

Fanbases want too much, IMO. I think the job of TPTB is to keep giving the fans what they watch the show for, but not to bow down to every single demand. Look at Irna Phillips's old crazy ass. She killed off one of GL's most popular characters in 50s and the fans sent many, many letters to her about it. What did she do? Wrote up some pseudo-philosophical mumbo-jumbo and sent it back to them. She didn't care. In her world, as in the real world, no one is safe from death just because they're well-liked. People die. Popular people die. And they don't come back to life twenty years later (JESSE DAMN HUBBARD).

[DeeeDee]

*cough*unabortion*cough*

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Totally agree. I also think networks, especially ABC, depend too much on focus groups. Hire a head writer you trust, let them head write the show. Keep the EP's out of the writing process. Let them produce the words, not write the story. Soaps were best when they had strong head writers: Irna Phillips, Bill Bell, Agnes Nixon (before she sold her shows to ABC and the network had ultimate control), Henry Slesar, Doug Marland, Claire Labine, Harding Lemay (though he had many battles with EP Rauch).

[DRW50]

The problem with Irna's idea is that long term, it gutted her shows, and she often made these moves out of spite, not out of any writing integrity. She killed off Ellen's father because P&G wouldn't let him marry his mistress, Edith. She killed off Paul Stewart because she hated the quad he was in. She killed off Liz Talbot because she loathed the actress who played her so much that she transferred the hatred to the character even after the actress left and the role was recast. Even her decision to kill off one of GL's most popular characters was rumored to be about Irna trying to get people to tune out of GL and tune into her new baby, ATWT.

If you just kill off people because you feel like it, not because it does the storyline a bit of good, then you're not any better than the writer who never does anything fans don't like.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

All the "deaths" you mentioned never did anything to significantly weaken the ratings for ATWT. It remained the number one show during most of Irna's tenure. She never killed a character for shock value or as a sweep's stunt, which is how it's done now. As the show's creator, if she felt a character or actress/actor wasn't working for whatever reason, who better to make the decision to change direction than her? ATWT was her baby. She loved the show. Lived it. Were all her writing choices the right ones, no. No soap head writer's ever are. But she understood the show and the audience better than most do today, with "help" from all their focus groups and blogs and big shot network brass. Also, I don't buy the "rumor" about Irna killing off one of her most popular characters on Gl to get the audience to abandon the show and tune in to ATWT. The shows were on the same network. She created both of them. That's like saying Aggie Nixon purposely did such and so to get viewers to leave OLTL and go over to her new creation AMC. No creator would do that to their "creation." A lot of rumors still swirl around Irna. She was a strong lady. She had a strong vision for her shows. We need more head writers of that ilk today, and less network interference.

[DRW50]

They remained #1, but lost some ground. The ratings crashed when Irna was at ATWT the last time and went on a killing spree. That's one of the reasons she was fired, along with the decision to pair Bob and Kim and have Kim with Bob's child.

I would argue that Kathy's death on GL was the epitome of shock value (her wheelchair pushed into oncoming traffic by kids on bicycles). Liz Talbot falling up the stairs isn't exactly plot-based writing either.

Agnes Nixon is not Irna Phillips. Agnes isn't a saint and Irna isn't a sinner, but Irna did have a very vindictive streak, and control issues, that are documented. This is the woman who was so upset about GL getting a special color episode that she made sure it was set in a white hospital operating room, so CBS would not give them another color episode for a long time to come.

Irna was an amazing writer and we wouldn't even have soaps without her but she did at times operate on a petty basis and in the long run I do think it hurt her shows. When she came back to ATWT she had no real idea of what the audience at the time would accept, and while I do admire her for being ahead of her time with Kim (as she was ahead of her time with other stories such as interracial relationships at LIAMST), I think that some of her decisions, like the way she chose to end Paul/Dan/Susan/Liz, were examples of how not to write for characters and how not to keep an audience.

[Sylph]

Talked about it here.