How soaps dug their own grave

[All My Shadows]

And plus, not everyone is in love with the British soaps right now either. If you went to a British soap message board or just looked at YouTube comments, it wouldn't take you long to find people who think that today's Corrie is a very pale shadow of what it used to be.

[DRW50]

I don't know if it's about people being in love with the British soaps so much as the networks over there still being interested in trying to save those soaps. Unfortunately that doesn't seem to be true for Corrie the past few years (although it still gets a lot of advertising), but is for Emmerdale and Eastenders.

The US networks seem to be willing to let most of the soaps wither away, or they hire people who obviously know nothing about soaps or just know the right person.

[Jess]

Soaps are dying because they are no longer interesting. They operate on an outdated model. The discussion about fan bases is relevant. But the truth is, the fan bases that soaps reach out to, and that they appeal to are those who are wedded to an outdated model. The fan bases that make the most noise, are those that are hidebound to soaps as they once were. I continue to read that OLTL is the best soap on television. It is the lowest rating or the penultimate soap every single week. People can squawk about the ratings all they want, but there is certainly no reason to believe that one show is disproportionately affected relative to others.

Many of these dinosaurs have been roaming the earth for 40 years. Cancel them and bring on something new. An yes, most of the new soaps have died also, but what is so wrong with a show only surviving for five, six, seven or eight years? It works in nighttime. So what if CBS brings on a game show for a few years in place of GL? Maybe in a few years they can bring in some type of drama that attracts attention.

I know that many fans leave shows when a favorite character is killed off or leaves. Well maybe they watched the show for that character. If they don't like it anymore, they don't watch it. Maybe in lean times, TPTB would be well-served to take that into consideration. I don't think it would prolong the fate of the shows.

Soaps are not the first genre to outlive their time. Remember the Western? I think it is highly possible, and frankly probable, that there is nothing that anyone did to bring about the decline of soaps in their current format. Likewise, I doubt at this time and in this atmosphere, there is much that can be done to resurrect soaps in their current format. I do think after they die, they will come back in the future, but in a format that is not so hidebound.

[DRW50]

I don't see why they would. This is about saving money and getting young demos. If they think they will get that from a game show, or a reality show, or a court show or talk show, then they're not going to pay more to start a soap. It's false equivalence to say, "A soap doesn't have to run forever, why can't we have shorter soaps," because we are not getting shorter soaps. We're not getting any new soaps whatsoever.

The problem with saying "Westerns outlived their usefulness, just like soaps" is that soaps are much broader based than Westerns. You can do anything with a soap. Even then, Westerns continued on for 60 years, if you add films as well as TV, and still might have a home if someone made an effort.

No one makes the effort with anything now.

I don't think it's a coincidence that as soaps became increasingly scared and conservative, their ratings crashed.

If fans quit shows because of actors leaving, the soaps would have about 50 viewers each. I think the days of any large scale ratings erosion being based on individual characters leaving are long gone. What we are in now is a long process of telling many soap viewers "You are not wanted." The soaps spent years telling viewers that if they were not interested in pretty, young, white faces, starring in shallow, stupid storylines which seemed made up as they went along, then they needed to go away. And a lot of those viewers did. Unfortunately for daytime, many of the young, white, rich viewers who were supposed to replace them weren't interested either.

[David V]

How many Primetime shows today follow a "soap" format or include "soapy" elements in them? Heck, Japanese anime for instance follows a very "soap-like" format- continuity of storytelling and character development which can be very intense.

I'd add that a root cause of the decline is the fact that the shows began to think less about the long term than they did about short term gain, and hence sensationalism and shock value became de rigeur in place of believable, relatable storytelling. What can be defined as "conservative"- traditional soap? I contend that when soaps began veering away from tradition and towards gimmicks and shock value tactics, they alienated the true fans of the genre who never returned.

[DRW50]

There's nothing traditional about a world where the only men we are supposed to care about are thugs and misogynists, and all women are written as victims or whores, or both.

Women are treated in an appalling manner and this has been getting worse for the past 10-15 years, as ratings have dwindled. Add in the sick storytelling, which revolves around ugliness and abuse, and the refusal to write for minorities, and soaps are out of touch. The main audience for this type of perversion have no interest in soaps.

[David V]

Well that's the disturbing trend that's come in more recently with the decline of soaps- misogyny and sometimes violent misogyny, not to mention the glorification of mob culture that began on GH.

Notice how female characters have suffered the most under JFP and MMT? Under both of their watch (or toxic pen) we've seen brutal rape used as a ploy, or a brutal stalking murder.

[classicmoment]

Well quality still does matter because people that do watch in real time tune out when they are not seeing the "draw" of it. It may matter less than some of us would like when it comes to an objective marketting stance, but it matters. I agree about the models in many way being outdated. When a show not to mention a genre runs only slighlty different for decades, it will lose it's appeal when it comes to younger generations. If daytime had a balance of traditional American soap operas and our own American version of telenovelas I wonder if we would have noticed a comparable difference in viewership patterns. I think soaps should have made better efforts to find out what appeals to younger genrations and what brings more viewers i.e. diversity, young relevant social issues, reality based drama, intelligent character ideals/ relatable characters. These elements are still too lacking, I mean it maybe too late now or for those of us who believes it is never too late then I guess this is where ratings boost should be looked into. The problem with soaps is it vested too much in tradition while vesting too lil in relevant contemporary elements. It chose to disregard strong contemporary representation in my book, throwing a bone to the young viewers here and there (and being off base so much of the times while doing it) was not enough.