How soaps dug their own grave

[DRW50]

Great thread, I'd never seen that!

That thread also confirms what I wasn't 100% sure of, that Irna also killed off Robin, another key character who still had plenty of life ahead of her, ten years after she killed Kathy. That was also an abrupt ending to a story. I guess she thought this was some type of irony, since Robin's stepmother (Kathy) had died the same way.

[SOAPSFOREVER]

[SOAPSFOREVER]

Again, all head writers make mistakes, even the strongest isn't golden all the time. My point being: Irna had a vision for her shows and followed it. The sponsors and network suits rarely got their way with her (she let them think they did), and her shows were the richer, more powerful for it. Also, no one said Aggie Nixon was Irna Phillips. They are very different women. I was just pointing out that no head writer would purposely sabotage one of their shows in hopes of sending viewers to the other. There's absolutely no proof that's what Irna did in the GL case.

[JackPeyton]

yes, without a doubt they have.

[David V]

What I meant to say is that the PTBs made a massive miscalculation with their youth obsession from the 90s onwards. They thought the younger viewers would have liked stupid storylines and hair models in place of actors. In fact, the obsession with looks is even socially irresponsible, at a time when the issue of young girls' self-esteem is on the agenda.

Another thing we should also look at is how well (or how poorly) the networks have supported their soaps. From best to worst they've been CBS, ABC and NBC.

CBS have traditionally had the best track record, and hence the cancellation of GL is a significant milestone. Granted there were some poor decisions along the way- the Edge of Night timeslot switch and ditching Search for Tomorrow when it was still doing well (neither Capitol nor B&B, dare I say, reached the same levels of viewership as SFT) but overall its track record was the most consistent. Worth noting too that they didn't suffer that badly from the rise of ABCD in the late 70s/early 80s.

ABC took some time to make it work. It wasn't until the late 70s that they emerged as serious challengers and ultimately rose to the top for a few years. When General Hospital was strong, all of its other shows- AMC, OLTL and even RH- were rating well in those years. However since the 90s it can be argued that they lost their way and especially under Frons, who instituted a totalitarian regime of trying to run every aspect of the show. ABC thus gained a reputation of being the most hands-on network with its soaps, to the point of even virtually obliterating their identities.

NBC has had by far the worst track record and this is going back to the early days when some promising shows were cancelled. Never mind that it then enjoyed a Golden Age with three big hitters (Days, AW, The Doctors) and even then squandered that. Many factors caused its catastrophic collapse c. 1980 from which it never recovered, and not all of them related to Daytime. They then looked like getting it right in the 80s with their three-hour block, but even then it didn't last. And then you have the gradual descent to today's predicament where Days is the last one standing. And its handling of the cancellations of Another World and Sunset Beach was distasteful.

However, big question marks are reserved for P&G because looking back, I really think they've been treating the shows they own as an afterthought since the mid-90s. The 1995 moving around of EPs was one of the worst things that happened to all of AW, ATWT and GL from which all shows in hindsight could not really recover from.

What also disturbs me is the fact that violence and misogyny have become soap stables in the past decade. To make things worse, people like Jill Farren Phelps and Megan McTavish- both of them women- have been responsible for a lot of the misogyny proving that men don't have a monopoly on it.

[BadBoy93]

ABC Soaps have fallen dramaticly.AMC is a mess and Susan Lucci should be embarrased.OLTL is the best one but still has problems but Mitch`s return will be enjoyable until he dies again.GH is mob city but delivers rarely.

CBS Soaps are good but i just don`t tune into them.

NBC soaps i agree have the worst record.Days is fighting to survive but soon it will go and the talent will go with it.Bo & Hope are still adoreable to watch though.

Where as British Soaps are alive and well.Hollyoaks may have low ratings but people still talk about the soap.Emmerdale is revamping itself with new familes and storylines and people are tuning in again.Eastenders & Coronation Street remain the top 2 soaps with 9-10 Million viewers.

Don`t you agree CarlD2.

[DRW50]

I would agree about the British soaps. They're in a different situation of course, being in primetime, and they started out only one or two days a week (some would say they should return to that) but more effort seems to be put into repairing them, instead of just giving up.

[Dan]

For years, I ranted and raved in the same way. If only TPTB would have done this and not that, maybe we wouldn't be in the situation we are in. But the reality is more likely that the ratings would have dropped no matter if they cloned Agnes and Doug Marland to run all the shows. Why? Because tv ratings are down. All across the board. Primetime and daytime. The threshold by which a show is judged as a hit is a mere fraction of what it once was. And because of that, shows on USA or HBO can outperform even network programming. Jeff Zuker was right a few months ago when he said that the networks are just really bloated cable channels. The audience is fracturing as more channels are added, as technology gives us more avenues to watch our fave shows.

Therefore, daytime is the first to be affected by it because they have historically had lower ratings than network primetime. So while the ratings possibilities for daytime are much lower, TPTB still have dreams of the halcyon days where daytime literally drove all the ad revenue for the network. So budgets get cut and characters get whacked in order to wring out as much profit as possible. We get pissed and the diehard but disgruntled fans join the exodus. The ratings lower and the cycle continues.

Look, I would love to say that quality matters. But those of us that say that quality and consistency and integrity matter on a show simply do not have a leg to stand on when we look at objective ratings data. Truth be told, the ingredients for success are probably more like the stars aligning than anything else.

Of course, the silver lining is that in this technology-heavy and fragmented atmosphere, there is a renewed purpose for our old shows. Guiding Light will probably live on just as AW, SFT, EON on Hulu, on Youtube, on some random idea that PGP will come up in the future. That's why I don't understand why they are trying to broaden the audience for Soapnet. The days of a channel that appeals to everyone are over. I think it's about time for the niche channels to remember their niches and go for that particular audience.

[David V]

It's very clear that the networks (and P&G) have implied they wanted out of soaps. Their actions over the years have proven it.

Daytime's biggest problem is trying to be something it wasn't meant to be.

[DRW50]

Why am I not surprised Zucker said this, since he took NBC from an event channel with shows everyone wanted to watch, to a channel with shows almost no one wants to watch. I think him saying "bloated cable channel" is his excuse for putting garbage and filler on his network year in and year out.

Ratings for the broadcast networks are actually up this year, so I think the viewers are still there if the networks make an effort.

If anything I think the cable networks are becoming more like broadcast. HBO and USA, among others, are far more generic than they once were.

[NorrthCafe]

I don't know that I buy the argument that soaps would have died anyway, and using dropped ratings across the board as the evidence for that. Two factors could contribute to the 'across the board drop', 1 - incestuous backstage behavior that shifts the same failed writers from soap to soap so that they all feel the same. Prime time seems to make better use of the fact that there is a seemingly endless talent pool to draw from. Sure, some writers are working consistently in prime time, but only when they're successful. You can write storylines so craptacular that the ratings hit the ratings basement, and still rebound as a head writer of another soap almost immediately.

You don't hear the B.S. argument that the prime time form is so unique that only those who understand the genre can write for it. GMAB! Apparently daytime is such a unique entertainment form that the limited pool of writers shifted from show to show don't get it, either.

2- related to the first point is that I don't know it never seemed to have dawned on TPTB that while they viewed one another as 'competitors', fans didn't make that distinction. Many soap fans either watch 'line ups' or at least multiple soaps - different networks. Once you walk away from one or two soaps that offer the same content (or seemingly the same content), then its easier to walk away from the rest of them. Ratings are dropping across the board because the fans who supported multiple shows have dumped them all - they've given up hope that soaps will ever grow as a genre, or take a risk on doing something different, or that TPTB will stop interpreting 'different' to mean that we want them to kill the vets instead of killing off sucking storylines.

[EricMontreal22]

I love British soaps but with all due respect, I think bringing them up in this argument is beyond pointless. There's no relevance because the way they're made, marketed, perceived and even written is so different from US daytime dramas.

[JackPeyton]

and thats the issue.

[MoTheGreat]

I"m in the group of the fanbases. But I also know that couple doesn't last that long on Soaps. 2 yrs in regular time for a couple is like 10 years for a soap couples. I wish all fanbases understand that. If you couple last more then 5 years people need to cherish that & move on from there.

[JackPeyton]

I hate this stance.

If networks hated soaps and wanted out of airing them, guess what... they wouldnt air the.

Networks are about turning a profit, plain and simple. If soaps turn more of a profit than a cheap replacement then they will keep them. If not then they will cut them.