http://www.tvguidema...anger-3525.html

ETA: sorry about the thread title, can a mod fix that please? Thanks

Edited December 15, 200915 yr by Zendall Fan

Interesting read. I pretty much agree with everything he had to say.

Brad Bell seems like a real straight shooter, which is a rare thing in this industry...

Nice read but the MadMen comparison I am not sure I buy. I'd love to know how they match up to other shows in daytime like popular network show reruns like L&O, which I have read actually draw a bigger auduence than 3 of the 6 soaps which will be left on the air. But I guess I would not expect him to say much different than this.

Brad Bell seems like a real straight shooter, which is a rare thing in this industry...

Oh PLEASE. Straight shooter my ass.

I believe that he was specifically referring to the P&G shows when he said that. B&B just recently signed a two-year deal with CBS in October, so we have legs with the network. Y&R signed a similar deal around the same time.

Are there outs in the contract? Can CBS try to renegotiate if the ratings dip below expectations? Of course he would leave this information out.

I think we’re now down to the six soaps that will survive. For me there was no surprise that ATWT was cancelled. Their business model wasn’t working.

And yours is? Putting together this cheap, tawdry wank show, filled with technical gaffs and terrible acting with little to no rehearsal. Letting your actors run wild and all over you and your production team?

But hey, good for you if it works, man. Good. For. You.

I’m not concerned. Days of Our Lives is standing alone on NBC and their recent numbers have been pretty good, so I think the two soaps can hold their own on CBS.

Their recent numbers are so good that they tied you in the households recently. WAKE UP, BRAD! You know you're having problems when a sh*t show like DAYS finds it's Nielsen second wind, again!

Our status internationally means nothing to them.

The most honest and real thing the man said in this entire interview.

Oh, I think we can produce these shows even more economically than we are right now. In a way, we’re going full circle back to the 1950s where they were producing these soaps for next to nothing. We got very fat and happy in the ’80s and ’90s, doing five takes per scene, and going on all these lavish remotes. We couldn’t spend money fast enough. Now we’ve been tightening our belts a little bit but we still have a long way we can go.

And it shows. Right down to the boom mics penetrating the scenes.

What more can you do to slash the budget before it starts showing on air?

That question is a moot point [Ridge]LOGAN![/Ridge] It's already starting to show. B&B looks so [!@#$%^&*] cheap and tacky compared to a year or two ago. Horribly staged and directed. So rushed.

It might mean writing more scenes with fewer people—two-person scenes require much less time to stage and shoot—and we might be able to eliminate some of the sets. We can also expand our ways of doing the show. We shot much of Betty White’s final four-episode arc very inexpensively and on location at the beach, and it all came together wonderfully.

KEEEP telling yourself that. JFP has her Emmy in the bag already. But there's always next year.

If we’re to look at the positive, there are now hundreds of channels and soaps are still the top-rated shows in their timeslots. I look at the ratings for Mad Men—a show that has everybody talking—and they’re only pulling in a million viewers. You’ve got to be kidding me!

Mad Men also airs on CABLE, not network television! If B&B moved to E!(which is in just about every cable home in the country), I doubt they would still pull 3.5, 4 Million Viewers. But hey, who am I to sh!t on the parade?

Talk shows and game shows are so inexpensive to produce but we’re determined to challenge them and stay competitive with them. It’s not over yet for the Bell family. We plan to be in this business for many years to come.

Then ACT like it. Stop writing crap for stories, stop undermining your audience's intelligence with lame brained, rehashed from 15 years ago plots, and your cheap, trashy humor.

Stop writing crap for stories, stop undermining your audience's intelligence with lame brained, rehashed from 15 years ago plots, and your cheap, trashy humor.

Pretty much!

Whatever brad, follow some of your own damn advice.

Any business and creative sense that family had died when Bill died...

I honestly don't think it's about quality with any of these shows anymore. ANy of them. It's whatever stories they can shock the audience with. That's all Brad and Colleens deaths were this year. Y&R has turned into GH a death and then months of boredum and dullness. B&B I can't even put into words. I can't watch that show anymore. YOu can't be a fan of the show without worshipping Ridge and I detest him.

Days is the ONLY show having success and I wish they shows would really examine how Days did it. I'm doubtful though any of these shows could replicate the success they've had.

Bill Bell RIP.

Edited December 15, 200915 yr by JaneAusten

I honestly don't think it's about quality with any of these shows anymore. ANy of them. It's whatever stories they can shock the audience with. That's all Brad and Colleens deaths were this year. Y&R has turned into GH a death and then months of boredum and dullness. B&B I can't even put into words. I can't watch that show anymore. YOu can't be a fan of the show without worshipping Ridge and I detest him.

Days is the ONLY show having success and I wish they shows would really examine how Days did it. I'm doubtful though any of these shows could replicate the success they've had.

Bill Bell RIP.

Days went back to basics. Someone smelled the coffee in the nick of time but their biggest mistakes would be getting too comfortable whilst they are still on the air. The only thing the Bell shows can stand to take from Days imo is going back to basics by the Bill Bell standards but for many reasons I don't see that happening with the executed "visions". In Brad's interview it sounds sensible on one hand but when I think about it all I hear is "cheap". He should be very careful with what he's really cutting back on, same goes for the other Bell show. These shows HAVE no visionL; sometimes I feel as if I'm watching people work whilst watching them instead of watching graceful storytelling & productive art at work. The trick with being "frugal" in business many times is to work hard at making it seem the opposite, especially when the market is high strung

Edited December 15, 200915 yr by classicmoment

This is Brad Bell we are talking about. Yes B&B was good earlier this decade but he can never decide what he wants, relies too much on repetition and comes up with scatterbrained ideas (pairing Eric and Caitlin for a Lolita story, making Gabby a deranged disfigured psycho; both dropped last minute thankfully!!), atrocious PSAs (Hope in the hot tub; Massimo becomes an environmentalist; need I say more?) and shameless Emmy grabs. He is the only one to blame for any woes that B&B faces these days.

Edited December 15, 200915 yr by soapfan770

Interesting read. I pretty much agree with everything he had to say.

Brad Bell seems like a real straight shooter, which is a rare thing in this industry...

Totally agree. He definitely has the right attitude. (Unlike some, who just LOVE to bitch and spread negativity.)

Even Les Moonves, the a$$hole himself, says that the "special soaps" will survive. I would class Y&R, B&B, Days, GH and AMC as the "special soaps". OLTL is the only one I would be concerned about. BTW, when was the last time ABC cancelled a soap? CBS and NBC have both cancelled soaps in the last 5 years, but not ABC. So there might still be hope for OLTL.

B&B I can't even put into words. I can't watch that show anymore. YOu can't be a fan of the show without worshipping Ridge and I detest him.

Actually, Ridge hasn't really had his own storyline since he and Brooke got back together in September. And creatively, the show has been doing fabulously since.

comes up with scatterbrained ideas (pairing Eric and Caitlin for a Lolita story, making Gabby a deranged disfigured psycho; both dropped last minute thankfully!!)

Actually, I would've liked the bolded one. Gaby may have been vaguely interesting.

ABC cancelled Port Charles in 2003.

I just wish Brad Bell would finally write Taylor out for good. I also wish Donna would go away, but I know that will never happen.

Totally agree. He definitely has the right attitude. (Unlike some, who just LOVE to bitch and spread negativity.)

Hey Dingo,

Can we make this less about your asinine attempt at being bitchy and more about the topic at hand?

Thanks.

Hey Dingo,

Can we make this less about your asinine attempt at being bitchy and more about the topic at hand?

Thanks.

I don't know what it is about my posts that makes you think you need to reply to every single one of them. I should be flattered, I suppose.

"Dingo"? Classy.

Oh, Brad. "It was time"? I know you're trying to come over all Aaron Spelling and TV mogul-ish but... STFU. Until you, William Shakespeare, produce a show which has the resonance of the 1970s soaps you claim the genre is reverting to, you need to SIT your ass DOWN.

Yes, B&B is good at the moment. But it ain't Bill Bell-great. And you know this show is always one SL away from Steffy turning out to be Dr. James Warwick's, allowing Ridge to start looking at his little princess with "different eyes."

(And no more "dingo" talk. Please. Let's insult with pithy asides and acerbic one-liners! We've got it in us to be more creative, bitchily-speaking, than the CBS Daytime message boards).

Edited December 15, 200915 yr by Cat