NBC Daytime

[DRW50]

Around the time Kristen was raising Susan's baby and Peter was presumed dead and Laura kept trying to remember what was going on, he would take some thing that looked like a curling iron and zap their memory. This moving so far away from NBC was what reminded me of that, I didn't mean you were Stefano

[EricMontreal22]

HAHAH wasn't sure Evil and curling iron always makes me think of curly 80s hair (which I am cursed with--must be that part black in me ) and the horrific murders in Sleepwaway Camp...

[quartermainefan]

People here seem to just take conventional wisdom, mix it with the monolithic tastes of soap fandom, and then come out with a statement like JER's second run almost killed DAYS. I may be misremembering things a little, but JER and his serial killer story was a huge ratings smash, and the reveal got the biggest bump putting that show in B&B territory. Did the island story kill his momentum? I guess, but was the decision to reverse the entire story entirely JER's decision? How about Emmy winning Hogan Sheffer? This hack is who an opinion coalesced around that he was a genius, a godsend. He sucked. People just seem to always dismiss JER, and yet his serial killer story was one of the biggest events of the decade in all of soapdom, and people seemed to have liked it for quite a while.

[Michael]

Yeah, but the show completely fell apart after that. By the time JER was fired/walked out/whatever and the Milstein/Sheffer camp came in, Days was a complete disaster. There was no buzz whatsoever, that horrible Alex North story came and went, Carrie/Austin/Sami/Lucas was just lazily repeating from 1996, etc. It's actually shocking to me how bad it got. I'm pretty sure the ratings reflected that, by the time the writing change happened.

[All My Shadows]

*looks around* Oh, I'm s'proud. My little question caused this thread to hit three pages in one night.

I think the general idea is that while the 70s were the [!@#$%^&*], somewhere in the early-mid part of the decade, soaps reached their peak in popularity/lucrativeness and started the long, long descent into the living hell we call daytime drama today.

[Eric83]

I said in the other post, some of the blame went to Corday for making JER re-write the story. JER didn't have to do all those outlandish and offensive storylines such as that Iraq Story. JER did get ratings up "for awhile", by 2005/2006 he was bringing the show to all new lows, and had chased away a ton of viewers.

Weeok of May 1-5, 2006

Total Viewers

1. Y&R 5,322,000 (+77,000/+263,000)

2. B&B 4,063,000 (-29,000/+243,000)

3. GH 3,536,000 (+160,000/+55,000)

4. AMC 3,259,000 (-188,000/-167,000)

5. ATWT 3,145,000 (-308,000/-30,000)

6. OLTL 3,141,000 (-60,000/-67,000)

7. DAYS 2,918,000 (-140,000/-463,000)

8. GL 2,767,000 (-141,000/-63,000)

9. PSNS 1,755,000 (-111,000/-578,000)

HH

1. Y&R 4.2/16 (+.1/+.2)

2. B&B 3.2/11 (+.1/+.1)

3. GH 2.8/9 (+.1/-.1)

4. AMC 2.6/9 (-.1/-.2)

4. OLTL 2.6/9 (+.1/-.1)

6. ATWT 2.5/9 (-.1/-.1)

7. DAYS 2.3/8 (-.2/-.4) <--------- ties low rating

8. GL 2.1/7 (-.2/-.1) <------------ ties low rating

9. PSNS 1.4/5 (-.1/-.5) <--------- ties low rating

Bringing the show down THAT far, isn't almost killing it? The show was able to get into the high 3's just 2 years earlier. I didn't watch Hogan Sheffer's run, becuase JER chased me away back in 2005, but I know he brought the show down too. But JER's crappy ass stories in 2004/2005 defenitely contributed to it.

Look at how many viewers he chased away, the only soap to lose more was Passions.

JER was writing that one too, go figure.

[EricMontreal22]

I can stand behind that--dunno if Dee can though

[DaytimeFan]

That quote, combined with Susan and Helmut getting their groove thang on is the stuff dreams are made of.

[SFK]

I love you DaytimeFan! I need to be careful though when I *sip* while visiting these message boards. The Holy Spirit has intervened on more than one occasion and guided my finger to that Backspace button.