I posted this thread a few months ago, at Daytime Royalty, DAYS' recent renewal made me think about it again.

Even though CBS and ABC aren't exactly in the best shape right now they have managed to keep strong and consistent line-ups over the years with lots of successes, that hasn't really been the case with NBC. How did the network that started the hour-long soap trend in AW and DYS become such a colassal mess? In the early 70's, NBC had the "young" and "hip" soaps that were doing so much better than most of CBS' and all of ABC's lineup. Then something happened. The whole daytime lineup collapsed in the late 70's and early 80's, and never really recovered. DAYS is the only soap in NBC daytime history, that has managed to consistently be successful (even though it has had some rough periods) throughout its run, and actually remain a contender amongst the ABC and CBS soaps.

What got them here? I have researched and chose a few moments or events.

1. AW's 90 Minute Expansion

This shook up the lineup, an forced The Doctors into the 12:30 pm timeslot. Once SFT joined the lineup, The Doctors was pushed to 12:00, and dropped off many affiliates due to them wanting that time slot for local news. AW was already in ratings decline, but the 90 minute expansion definitely drove them down to the bottom of the pack, where it remained for the remaining 20 years of its run.

2. Texas

The show Texas is also a factor IMO. It was a new soap being put up against powerhouse GH, and a still strongly-rated GL. The show was also criticized in turning Beverly McKinsey's character Iris Cory into a heroine. The network should have stuck with AW in the 3:00 pm timeslot.

3. Letting affiliates do whatever the hell they want!

By the mid 90's, NBC had just cancelled SB, and was down to just AW and DAYS, both shows were in ratings trouble. JER came in and turned DAYS around completely and skyrocketed to #2 in the ratings. AW hardly benefitted from this, as some affiliates either aired AW in different slots or didn't air it at all. Had NBC demanded the affiliates to do so, or work out that problem, AW could have had a similar ratings reneissance.

4. Not taking newer soaps seriously

I do applaud NBC for trying with SuBe and Passions, but these shows were farces and were never taken seriously. I understand they had their own identity and what not, but a little more traditional soap moments and less over the top stuff could have helped tremedously.

5. AW/SuBe cancelled in same year

The final and ultimate blow to NBC daytime, was the cancellation of AW and SuBe in 1999. NBC Daytime pretty much bowed out of the soap game that year. Between all the cancellation rumors surrounding DAYS, and what happened to Passions showed that they really didn't care. SuBe should have gotten the axe before AW. NBC should have seriously tested a DAYS/AW/Passions lineup, and at least tried to get affiliates on board. NBC went out of their way to make sure Passions aired after DAYS in most markets, why couldn't they have done that with AW?

To sum it up, those are the reasons IMO why NBC Daytime has never recoverd the large amount of viewers they lost in the late 70's. DAYS has pretty much carried NBC Daytime on its back for the past 30 years, and had NBC (and P&G) actually tried with AW they show could have lasted longer. (Hell, it could still be on today.) While I was/always will be a fan of Passions, it was a mistake to cancel AW for it. It was inevitable that NBC wanted JER to have his own soap, so at least SuBe could have bit the bullet. Maybe if NBC showed any effort, DAYS wouldn't have to be the lone soap on the network.

This is what my random thought about DAYS this afternoon turned into

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by Eric83

Well the 70s creatively are my fave era--but I meant commercially. Soaps ended because so many soaps were suddenly doing so well that the network either wanted the time slot to increase a bigger soap to an hour, or wanted to drop a low rating soap because they felt a new soap would do better. So the reason they had so many failed soaps that started and ended in the decade (and honestly they had less than the 60s had), was to try to get a bigger piece of that now huge pie.

And yeah creatively it was the first time journalists and authors wrote about soaps, that huge groups of college students watched, etc. But I'm talking purely from a money making perspective--soaps have NEVER been bigger and more financially rewarding for the networks than the 70s. Sorry--that's a fact.

Sorry--that's a fact.

Eh.

Not so much.

If soaps were THAT successful & THAT big in the 70's it would stand to reason the networks would want MORE not LESS Daytime Dramas.

So purely from a money making perspective your assertion doesn't hold. It doesn't make sense for the networks to stem profit by reducing product.

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by DeeeDee

They did want more daytime dramas--that's why they tried to expand all of their even somewhat successful shows (Labine refused with Ryan's Hope, Agnes held off with AMC for as long as she could, as did Bell with Y&R) and created TONS of new soaps, endlessly trying to get more hits.

Luke and Laura's wedding aside (which was a culmination of what happened from the late 70s afterall) ratings for soaps had never, and have never been so good across the board--the 70s also was when all the networks began to focus less on game shows indaytime and more on soaps cutting more game shows than any other time to give the slots over to soap opera.

By your argument the 80s were also a complete lack of success--nothing was a success except maybe the 60s.

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by EricMontreal22

They did want more daytime dramas--that's why they tried to expand all of their even somewhat successful shows

Most soaps didn't expand until mid decade by which point several longer running & newer created soaps had already been canceled

Luke and Laura aside ratings for soaps had never, and have never been so good across the board

And yet ratings are NOT the only indicator of success.

Especially when only three soaps created in the 70's survived the decade.

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by DeeeDee

Doesn't matter--the 70s was when OLTL, ATWT, Doctors, and other older soaps got their best numbers. Only one soap from the 80s is still on so I guess the 80s were an utter flop? Ryan's Hope did run till almost 1990. Only 3 soaps from the 60s are still on. That's an asinine way to judge success AT THE TIME. Most of the major soap cancelations (LIAMST, How to Survive a Marriage, For Richer and Poorer) were replaced with expanded hour soaps.

NBC in the early to mid 70's were challenging CBS for the first time.CBS shows were seen as old hat(from the 50's)ATWT,TGL and SFT were rating well but the influence of demographics were really being felt and CBS skewed older.

The same thing was happening in primetime with CBS hit 'rural' shows like Beverley Hillbillies,Petticoat Junction being cancelled in favor of Mary Tyler moore and All In The Family.Hence the cancellation of Secret Storm,LIAMST and WTHI and the debut of Y&R.

CBS took a hit when P&G insisted that TEON be moved so all P&G shows were in a block.The show had a dramatic fall in the ratings.

ABC was also beginning to show some ratings strength with GH and AMC.

Lin Bolen's reign as NBC daytime chief occurred at this time,She was all for expanding the soaps ,but also messed around with gameshows.

Her two big projects were How To Survive A Marriage and Magnificent Marble Machine.Both tanked in the ratings.So the momentum was lost.

ABC was creeping up all this time and took off when AMC hit #1 and GH under Monty exploded.

Days and AW had drastic falls.it was a combination of the shows themselves and the changing landscape.

If The Doctors went to an hour maybe it would have helped.Days at 1,Doctors at 2 and AW at 3.

Paul or Carl please back me up--I feel like I'm going crazy. Is DeeDee right that the 70s were the worst decade financially for the soaps??

I don't know the numbers...

I think the problem with 70s soaps is that so many of them took steep falls. The P&G soaps -- by the late 70s only ATWT and GL were hanging on, and that was in a reduced state. DAYS was in freefall by the end of the decade. So were AW and the Doctors.

The successful soaps at the end of the decade were generally on ABC.

Back then the networks still cared enough about certain soaps to invest in serious repair work, but I think that the decade as a whole was the beginning of the end.

Right but in the first half of the decade DAYS and AW were at their all time peaks--so if you take the decade as a whole it still had NBC's highest numbers--ever. (but it's true the CBS and especially NBC shows went from being massive in the early 70s to much lower as the ABC shows climbed)

In hindsight the expansion, etc, of the 70s was the beginning of the end for soaps--but at the time I don't thinkt he networks saw it as anything but an example of how massive and hugely successful soaps could be. It wasn't till the mid and even late 80s that they kinda started losing hope at having more hits.

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by EricMontreal22

Doesn't matter--the 70s was when OLTL, ATWT, Doctors, and other older soaps got their best numbers.

Numbers aren't the only thing that matters.

Only one soap from the 80s is still on so I guess the 80s were an utter flop?

Who said anything about utter flop?

The statement was the 70's were bad for Daytime Dramas on every network.

Good ratings & a mixed creative standpoint aside if only two are left standing and/or succeeding how is that unparalleled success?

Ryan's Hope did run till almost 1990.

Ryan's Hope couldn't even make it to 15 years while several shows created before it passed it & are still running today.

Most of the major soap cancelations (LIAMST, How to Survive a Marriage, For Richer and Poorer) were replaced with expanded hour soaps.

Secret Storm? Dark Shadows? Somerset? A World Apart?

Paul or Carl please back me up--I feel like I'm going crazy. Is DeeDee right that the 70s were the worst decade financially for the soaps??

Don't misquote me.

I said the 70's were bad for Daytime Drams on all 3 networks.

Nowhere did I say "worst decade financially"

That's all you.

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by DeeeDee

The 70s were probably the most successful time for soaps, but of course that didn't make TPTB from making some really, really bone-headed decisions.

1. P&G's 1972 scheduling fiasco for a single afternoon block rather than its shows being scattered across as a way to combat increasing competition from NBC and ABC. This not only is killer to non-P&G shows TSS and LIAMST, but also fatally hurts Edge in the long run.

2. NBC doesn't give new shows a chance to grow. No instantly high ratings, you're cancelled! See Bright Promise, Return to Peyton Place, HTSAM, and L&F/FRFP

3. This doesn't happen til 1984, but moving Ryan's Hope to a different timeslot killed that show.

Aside from Y&R, AMC, and RH think of some of the soaps created during this period too; a James Lipton soap, Lemay's high art soap, attempts at weak spinoffs. Then look what happened to established soaps, see Love of Life. So it's a no wonder cancellations came with these failures.

But nevertheless, the 70s was the first time networks, press, etc, looked into soaps with a new light.

That's irelevent. Other soaps like OLTL, GH, wouldn't have lasted the 70s if they hadn't had huge number increases in the late 70s. In Soap Opera World Fred Silverman (head of CBS and then ABC daytime) talks about how soaps had never been taken seriously by the networks before but throughout the 70s they paid, for the first time, for nearly all of the primetime programming on the networks. This NEVER was the case in other decades before or since. There's a reason there are such ridiculous takes on soaps written in the 70s like that within 10 years every movie star will petition to have a role on one, or nearly all tv will be soap opera--it's cuz they had never been as commercially successful or massive. And sadly, never would again. The 70s were the MOST successful time for the tv soap, number and money wise (and I'd argue artistically too).

Here's what LaGuardia said in 'Soap World'

"1970-The networks were now glutted with daytime serials,a full ten hours of daytime fiction.viewers were confused by the hodgepodge assortment,each network's afternoon serial block being destroyed by incursions of the other two networks. Rating and advertising revenues began to shrink,while the writers of the twenty serials suffered an understandable slump in creativity.

...This was a time in the soap world when the stakes had grown high,with millions of dollars of ad revenues on the table.Although the total viewing audience had more than doubled in just a few years,no one format was succeeding..Most of the older shows were in trouble,as were once popular sixties soaps like GH.Nervous network execs,scrambling for formulas that would win the ratings game,began to interfere with the creativity of writers and producers.

Roy Winsor had produced LOL and SS until 69."I had been working on a fixed budget from American Home Products.I got their money and they got their shows.For a long time they were very popular.I always worked on sound principles of theme and story,and they worked for my shows. then,when ratings competition got heavy,CBS kept pressuring for fancier sets,better trimmings,and with the money spent there wehad to lowere our acting budget and the story suffered."

The networks,up against the unknown,tinkered with the writing as well."It got to a point,where if a show slipped half a point in ratings shares,the poor writer would be given orders to make someone pregnant to get the numbers back up,"states Winsor.

So the 70's were the best of times and the worst!

PS Eric-do not contradict Dee Dee

Who said anything about utter flop?

The statement was the 70's were bad for Daytime Dramas on every network.

Good ratings & a mixed creative standpoint aside if only two are left standing and/or succeeding how is that unparalleled success?

Because it was the 70s that largely cemented the reputation and success of shows like One Life, GH, Doctors, AW, Days... We're not just discussing new shows, but shows created earlier that peaked in the 70s.

Ryan's Hope couldn't even make it to 15 years while several shows created before it passed it & are still running today.

So? it's ratings in the 70s--the decade we're arguing--were very strong. It was after that they fell.

Secret Storm? Dark Shadows? Somerset? A World Apart?

And the 60s had Bright Promise, Morning Star, Nurses, Brighter Day, Road of Life, Young Dr Malone, Young Marrieds, etc etc all end (at least 10 more) So?

Don't misquote me.

I said the 70's were bad for Daytime Drams on all 3 networks.

Nowhere did I say "worst decade financially"

That's all you.

you're dead on--I'm sorry. I did misquote you. I guess my point is, if they were bad for all three networks, what decade do you see as good?

PS Eric-do not contradict Dee Dee

Why not, is that one of the SON rules?

No-it's one of DeeDee's rules!

Luv ya D!!!

Edited March 20, 201015 yr by Paul Raven