A 9.7 for Y&R? Did Y&R ever hit a 10.0 in the 90's? I know they took over as No. 1 soap in the late 80's by default since GH lost steam, but damn, that's a high number! Ditto for everyone else. Clearly, the soaps were enjoying a post-holiday high (perhaps snowstorms?) and this was the last winter before the O.J. Simpson saga began.... dayumn!

I believe Y&R stayed in the 9.0 ranges from the end of 1993 to somewhere in 1994, 1995 when the OJ chaos happend, all soaps took a beatings even though Y&R has stayed number 1 throughout. Anyways, this was a very interesting list! thanks for posting! do you think you could maybe post the recaps from this issue?

Thanks! Do you have more ratings from the 90's?

Years back, I got Soap Opera Digest's entire years of 1989, 1993, 1994, and 1995 from eBay for very good deals. They didn't start actually listing the ratings numbers til sometime in 1992, so the '89 ratings are just a list from highest to lowest. But yeah, I can post more. I found the ratings the week where the O.J. coverage first hit the airwaves, and boy does it muck up the numbers and rankings that first week!

Edited May 31, 201015 yr by Gray Bunny

Years back, I got Soap Opera Digest's entire years of 1989, 1993, 1994, and 1995 from eBay for very good deals. They didn't start actually listing the ratings numbers til sometime in 1992, so the '89 ratings are just a list from highest to lowest. But yeah, I can post more. I found the ratings the week where the O.J. coverage first hit the airwaves, and boy does it muck up the numbers and rankings that first week!

Maybe you should share this info with Toups so you guys can fill in all of 1993, 1994, and 1995 in the ratings archive section of the board.

Edited June 1, 201015 yr by Eric83

I agree you should post more of the ratings!, but do you think you could post the soap opera digest synopses sections?

Compared to the other long-running soaps at the time, AW's ratings were horrendous.

Also, I was very surprised that DOOL was tied with GL at 7th place: The impression that I always had was that JERk immediately made DOOL into a ratings powerhouse upon assuming control in 1993. Now that these ratings clearly prove otherwise, when exactly did DOOL's ratings start taking off?

Edited June 1, 201015 yr by Max

I realize that these are just yearly ratings, and not weekly...but still interesting:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_US_daytime_soap_opera_ratings

Just imagine if we still had this many soaps on the air today:

1969-1970 Season (HH Ratings)

• 1. As the World Turns 13.6
• 2. The Edge of Night 10.8
• 3. Search for Tomorrow 10.0
• 4. Another World 9.6
• 5. Love is a Many Splendored Thing 9.5
• 6. The Guiding Light 8.9
• 7. Days of our Lives 8.8
• 8. The Doctors 8.6
• 8. The Secret Storm 8.6
• 10. General Hospital 8.5
• 11. Love of Life 8.0
• 12. Dark Shadows 7.3
• 13. Where the Heart Is 7.0 (Debut)
• 14. One Life to Live 6.7
• 15. Somerset 5.7 (Debut)
• 16. Bright Promise 5.2 (Debut)
• 17. All My Children 4.4 (Debut)
• 18. A World Apart 2.8 (Debut)
• 19. The Best of Everything 1.8 (Debut)

The glory days of the ABC soaps:

1981-1982 Season

• 1. General Hospital 11.2 (1981: November 16–17: 30 million viewers; Nov. 16-20 HH: 16.0)
• 2. All My Children 9.4 (November 16–20, 1981 HH: 10.2)
• 3. One Life to Live 9.3 (November 16–20, 1981 HH: 10.2)
• 4. Guiding Light 8.0
• 5. The Young and the Restless 7.4
• 5. As the World Turns 7.4
• 7. Ryan's Hope 6.9
• 8. Search for Tomorrow (final CBS run on March 26, 1982) 6.8
• 9. Capitol 5.8 (Debut)
• 10. Days of our Lives 5.5
• 11. The Edge Of Night 5.0
• 12. Another World 4.7
• 13. Texas 3.6
• 14. Search for Tomorrow (Begins NBC run on March 29, 1982) 3.4
• 15. The Doctors 3.3

Also, I was very surprised that DOOL was tied with GL at 7th place: The impression that I always had was that JERk immediately made DOOL into a ratings powerhouse upon assuming control in 1993. Now that these ratings clearly prove otherwise, when exactly did DOOL's ratings start taking off?

When JER first started Days' ratings were actually all the way down in the 4's. It was the Carly buried alive story when the series jumped from from the 4's into the 6's in the matter of a couple weeks. After that Days' ratings fluctuated a lot for awhile. It wasn't till later in '95 and '96 that Days became a consistent solid #2 soap at the time. If your interested Jason47's Days page has a pretty detailed ratings archive for Days for the 90s.

When JER first started Days' ratings were actually all the way down in the 4's. It was the Carly buried alive story when the series jumped from from the 4's into the 6's in the matter of a couple weeks. After that Days' ratings fluctuated a lot for awhile. It wasn't till later in '95 and '96 that Days became a consistent solid #2 soap at the time. If your interested Jason47's Days page has a pretty detailed ratings archive for Days for the 90s.

You are quite right. And another interesting thing about this time period (not just for DAYS, but all soaps) was that crucial moments in storylines *really* affected ratings. Big epic moments would impact numbers in definitely noticeable way.

But as you said, DAYS still fluctuated until 1995 when it stayed solid while others sank. Hooray for MarDevil!

Since you guys are interested, I'll snap shots of some other key weeks in the ratings from 1993, '94, and '95.

Edited June 1, 201015 yr by Gray Bunny

Yeah, JER's rise was slow and steady (like his storylines) - it took him 5 years to reach his highest ratings, in June 1997 with a 6.9 HH rating. His big storylines/events/revelations would get huge ratings. 90's Reilly just ruled.

Does anyone know when the mags started posting the 18-49 demos?

And yes, please keep posting these ratings, so I can add them to the archive! Thanks!!

Week of Aug 22 - 26 1994

Y&R 7.1/25

AMC 6.2/20

GH 5.8/20

DAYS 5.7/18

B&B 5.5/18

ATWT 5.0/18

OLTL 4.9/17

GL 4.8/16

AW 3.1/11

LOV 2.4/8

I will post more from SOW - they mentioned stories happening in connection with that weeks ratings.

I year later

Wk of Aug 21 - 25,1995(from previous week)

Y&R 7.3/25 (+ 0.1)

DAYS 5.9/19 (+0.2)

AMC 5.6/18 (-0.1)

B&B 5.3/17 (+0.2)

OLTL 5.0 17 (same)

GH 4.9/17 (+0.1)

ATWT 4.6/17 (same)

GL 4.0/14 (-0.1)

AW 3.3 /11 (+0.2)

LOV 2.6/9 (+0.1)

Days - Hope's memory flashes. AW - Jakw stopping Joe and Paulina's wedding LOV - Corinth murders. B&B - Maggie/Dylan/Jessica Brooke vs Taylor

Thanks, Paul. I got the 1995 one, but not the 1994 one.

Check here so you don't waste your type typing up the ratings.

http://boards.soapoperanetwork.com/forum/47-1990s/

Which reminds me, I should post the 97, 98, 99 ratings I have....I just keep putting it off. LOL