May 31 - June 4, 2010

[Sylph]

[DRW50]

I see what you mean, but doesn't the show only going back up .1 in a normal week mean something may not be working right?

[Toups]

Not at all, since we're only looking at one week.

[DRW50]

True, but I thought in other weeks where there was a drop of .2 or .3, they would usually gain that back the next week. This time that didn't happen.

[SteveFrame]

This is Gilbert, Steve's partner while he was living. I don't watch any soaps but GH but I love following the discussions in these rating threads. I have wondered for awhile if people are just watching and just not watching soaps.

I just saw this new feature on my direct TV receiver and thought I would share some stuff from the feature. I know some of you on here love local area ratings. I know there is nothing scientific about this as it only ranks the most popular with Direct TV customers. But I saw that Direct TV has a feature where you can see what the most popular shows being watched in your area are among Direct TV customers. It makes you wonder since the Nielsen's are just a sampling how the sampling of the Direct TV people correlates. As you will see below soaps don't do well at all -- at least on this Friday -- among Direct TV customers.

I thought I would use this today and share with you every 30 minutes during soaps what is the most popular show during the time frame according to the settings on Direct TV for the Central Time Zone in Middle Tennessee. I forgot the first 30 minutes of Y&R to check.

12:00

1. Young & the Restless

2. America Live on Fox News

3. All My Children

4. Comedy Central Presents

5. House

12:30

1. America Live on Fox News

2. Bold & the Beautiful

3. All My Children

4. Comedy Central Present

5. House

1:00

1. As The World Turns

2. Spongebob Squarepants

3. America Live on Fox News

4. Semi-Homemade Cooking on Food Network

5. One Life To Live

1:30

1. One Life To Live

2. As The World Turns

3. Hannah Montana

4. The Penquins of Madagascar on Nick

5. Formula One Racing

Throwing in one more update because I thought this was funny or weird or sad however you want to look at it. This just happened in the last five minutes shortly after OLTL moved to #1 in the rankings at 1:30 when it had been at #5 from 1 to 1:30

1:42 p.m.

1. As The World Turns

2. Chain Reaction on GSN

3. Destination Design on HGTV

4. College Baseball on ESPN

5. Cold Case on TNT

2:00

Oops I forgot that it will show what is also most popular across the United States at the same time. I will add them for the later slots too.

1:45 (Nationally)

1. World Cup Soccer on ESPN

2. Cold Case on TNT

3. America Live on Fox News

4. Destination Design on HGTV

5. Olivia on Nick Jr.

2:00 (Central)

1. General Hospital

2. Let's Make A Deal

3. Studio B with Shepherd Smith

4. Top 10 Football Familiesw

5. I Carly

2:00 (Nationally)

1. Studio B. with Shepherd Smith

2. Cold Case on TNT

3. House on USA

4. True Jackson, VP

5. Hannah Montana

Bored so will add 2:15

2:15 (Central)

1. Studio B with Shepherd Smith

2. General Hospital

3. Lets Make A Deal

4. When Weather Changed History on TWC

5. Days of Our Lives

2:15 (Nationally)

1. Studio B with Shepherd Smith

2. World Cup Soccer

3. Rick's List on CNN

4. ICarly

5. The Spring on Lifetime Movie Network

2:30 (Central)

1. Studio B with Shepherd Smith (Fox News)

2. Lets Make A Deal (CBS)

3. Victorious (Nik)

4. General Hospital (ABC)

5. Secrets of a Restaurant Chef (Food Net)

2:30 (Nationally)

1. Studio B with Shepherd Smith (Fox)

2. Victorious (Nik)

3. Bonanza (TV Land)

4. Secrets of a Restaurant Chef (Food)

5. World Cup Soccer (ESPN)

2:45 (Central)

1. Studio B with Shepherd Smith

2. Cold Case on TNT

3. Victorious (NIK)

4. Hannah Montana

5. According to Jim (TBS)

2:45 (Nationally)

1. Studio B with Shepherd Smith

2. Cold Case (TNT)

3. According to Jim (TBS)

4. Victorious (Nik)

5. Rick's List (CNN)

Going to do a few after 3:00 to see if viewers go back to the networks.

3:00 (Central)

1. World Cup Soccer (ESPN)

2. Your World with Neil Cavuto (Fox News)

3. Law & Order (TNT)

4. Sponge Bob Square Pants

5. Fanboy and Chum Chum

3:00 (Nationally)

1. World Cup Soccer (ESPN)

2. Your World with Neil Cavuto (Fox)

3. SpongeBob Square Pants

4. Law & Order (TNT)

5. House (USA)

I think people are still watching during the day -- just watching other stuff.

[JimTolkien]

I am going to disagree with you on that for one reason. This is only good because all the other shows are JUST BAD!!! It is not going to be good enough for CBS, this # and the #viewers is stagnant and there are not growing (instead we are yo-yoing, no consistency). All this influx of supposedly superstars from other shows, the expectation that they would draw in big #s is not happening and I will just use Stephen for now since he has been on for almost 5 months and is just being wasted, I have no idea what his purpose is yet - why is it taking so long starting to define his character. Whoopie, he is Kay's son, so what!! I want to see more of him.

As for MM, I am not touching that subject with a 10-foot pole, let's just say if he was in front of me, his nose would have been about 3 feet by now. Apparently someone told him because he plays Victor Jr., that means he is also Eric Braeden #2 and will draw in the viewers (who btw is not pulling in those viewers either). And now the show has their key characters focused on this one character, RIDICULOUS. His character is very damaged and IMO I don't think they will sell most viewers on his redemption considering the people who he has hurt but I am eager to see what effort they make.

MAB already said as much that she has no respect for us 20 online viewers who complain about the show , I hope she doesn't think that because perhaps 5 of those viewers like the character of Adam that translates to the general viewing audience the majority of which she doesn't hear from. Oh wait, she does hear from them because some of them have stopped watching. Billy/Victoria, all the hoopla, where is the effect? NuAbby, hoopla & shocking scenes, again where is the effect. Phick/Shick triangle crap, they need to give it a rest, pick a couple or none at all or move the heck on to something new. Victor, I love the character but geez, enough already.

I want to see growth from this show, I want to see quality in s/ls and production again. Yo-yo diets are never any good.

This show is in so much trouble (screw the Y&R is #1 mantra, it doesn't work anymore), sarcasm and cynicism seems to be the rule of thumb now when talking about the show. Does MAB have some type of vision to turn this show around, somehow I don't think so and I don't think it will be enough. The show is DESPERATE and sadly it shows.

[DRW50]

I don't think they had any plans for Tucker besides using him in case Braeden didn't accept their deal, and then after that, it just boiled down to, "Hey, let's hire someone who was popular on another soap." That's all they care about. Hiring people who were famous in primetime or film many years ago, or who were popular on another soap, and then not bothering to give them a damn thing to do.

[Ann_SS]

ITA, Toups. Y&R is the one soap with strong 18 to 49 women demos. I have no idea how they are doing TPTB are doing it, but they are. GH's big Sonny shooting Dante stunt got a 1.6 which Y&R gets on its worse day. It cannot be denied that whatever the criticism and hatred for TPTB on this board, that Y&R is the strongest soap in that key demo. This is why I am skeptical about Y&R's rumored upcoming budget cuts.

Hey Gilbert, hope you are doing well. I have thought of Steve frequently since the cancellation of ATWT. I keep thinking he would have something very insightful to add to the discussion.

You are right that there is a daytime audience which is watching other shows. The major problem for the soaps is that people watching them are over 50 years of age, therefore outside of the key 18 to 49 women demo.

[Cyberologist]

JJ was brought back in one of another of LnL2 lousy WTD storylines that is all they write for Elizabeth

babies and she never knows who the daddy is since 2002...

I don't think LnL2 fans are happy with the storyline which was god awful when I saw it.

JJ represents to me when GH was a good soap, unless its changed within the time

I gave up on it until the direction/focus changes.

As for Franco, and Jason storyline (again) I have no idea why they are trying to right this wrong. But its all in the pen,

it'll be intresting to see Vanessa back again, last time she came I vaguely remember the storyline

I thought she came on re: something w/Jax she was on screen w/Jason 75% of the

time I fear its the same Jax/Sonny/Brenda tri...and how old is that?

[marceline]

Thanks Gil. Interesting info. Seeing all those kiddie shows on the list makes me think Disney's decision to blowout Soapnet will be a profitable one.

[sacha]

For me, b&b started to die in 2006 with the departure of Darla, the death of Darlene Conley (Sally Spectra), and the fact that Thorne was put on the backburnerer.

But if we think harder, b&b started its fall in 2003, with the arrival of the Marone family.

What do you think?

[Gilbert]

Marceline,

I have been checking it off and on at different times of the day since I discovered it. And there is always one of those kids or teen shows in there. And always a news program. So you are probably right.

[Llantano Incorporated]

I was a huge B&B fan, and I agree with you. For me, B&B really started to die in 2006... Despite the Marone family, B&B was still watchable..

[Saving ATWT]

I've never been a steady AMC watcher but thought Pratt wasn't all that bad. I loved the transgender story, respected the manner in which he allowed chatacters to be ignorant by calling her a 'freak' and thought the prison scenes were artfully done. Contrast that with the everybody loves gays attitude over at ATWT and the lack of overall realism. Yes, the parents had a hard time dealing but I don't feel as if Luke had a real coming out story.

In general, AMC is a mess! I feel like you could expect some sort of quality with Pratt.

[jfung79]

I thought Luke's coming out story, with not only his parents' reaction but the estrangement from his best friend Kevin, was very well done on ATWT. It may have been Passanante's finest hour. It got me back watching after being away from ATWT for 6 years, and I related to Luke so so much. I also don't think it's necessarily unrealistic for everyone in Oakdale to be mostly accepting of Luke's sexuality. There isn't as much overt homophobia in real life as there is transgender-phobia. Plus there's something to be said for a soap portraying what should be rather than what is. People were pissed off at GL because it only moved a little toward Rafe accepting Otalia in the time it had, so you just can't win.

Been loving AMC since I started watching it again on May 12. It takes its time to firmly establish and build story, with consistent characters, but isn't boring either, and it emphasizes community and family. (I am shocked at how small the cast is though, quite different from ATWT. It could even be smaller than GL's cast was at the end.) The ratings for all ABC soaps are about the same so I'm not too worried about them - yet. But I long ago realized that soap ratings don't go up just because quality is good. In many cases, they go down. I despair at the judgment of my fellow soap fans sometimes.

Before you all think I am just being my usual Kreizman cheerleader self, I will say I think a lot of what I am loving is probably down to Lorraine Broderick still being on the writing team. I remember when I switched over to ATWT in 1999 after AW was canceled, Broderick was dragging out the canvas-spanning baby Hope story, really dragging it out -- and it was awesome! Damon also is a lot like Eddie Silva from ATWT at that time. Goutman should never have fired Lorraine Broderick, especially not as quickly as he did and especially not to replace her with Leah Laiman.