NBC Daytime

[DeeeDee]

Umm yes. From a creative standpoint the 70's was ok but how many soaps ended in the decade? How many soaps began & succeeded beyond the decade?

[EricMontreal22]

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.

[DeeeDee]

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.

[EricMontreal22]

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.

[DeeeDee]

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

And yet ratings are NOT the only indicator of success.

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

[EricMontreal22]

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.

[Paul Raven]

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.

[EricMontreal22]

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??

[DRW50]

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.

[EricMontreal22]

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.

[DeeeDee]

Numbers aren't the only thing that matters.

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

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

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.

[soapfan770]

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.

[EricMontreal22]

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).

[Paul Raven]

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

[EricMontreal22]

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.

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

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?

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?

Why not, is that one of the SON rules?