July 19-23, 2010

[Soapsuds]

Of course you know you are watching...."One Ford Brother to Live"...lol

[Ann_SS]

All these soaps are very bad and are treading water until they join ATWT which is also unwatchable in Cancellation City.

True and sad.

[MontyB]

Unfortunately, the show is inundated with Fords and I wish they'd leave, but from reading other boards, there are a boatload of others who love them. Just because I don't like these characters, it doesn't make the show bad. Their storyline is not bad, I just don't care about them. I'm loyal to OLTL, so I'm staying with it through good or bad, which every show goes through.

[OLTL_fan]

The thing that bothers me is how people assume AMC is safe because it got moved to LA. Frankly I think ABC did the right thing moving AMC over OLTL because OLTL is cheaper and stays under budget. If AMC didnt move, it wouldve been cancelled.

[MontyB]

We must have heard the same thing. When it was announced that they were moving, I read that were moving it to avoid cancellation because it was actually going to be cancelled. IMO, that brand stuff is nonsense and if came down to it the only true "brand" is GH.

[Soapsuds]

GH??....laughable.....lol

[All My Shadows]

+1

And I don't do that, for anybody, ever.

[MontyB]

Everyone knows Luke & Laura. So.......the you have Marcil coming back and she's supposed to be the savior.

[marceline]

Aww, I'm honored!

I used to work for a guy who's done a lot of work with branding. Focus groups, demographic research, testing, etc... ABC has done a fairly poor job of branding its soaps, Susan Lucci however is a goddess at branding herself. I'm willing to bet that if you talked to 100 people who've heard of Susan Lucci and got their impressions of her most of the feedback would be very similar. You don't have to like her or watch AMC but you know what you're getting with her.

I'm getting the unsettling feeling that Frons is trying to do something similar with Vanessa and GH and I don't think it will turn out well. They'd be better off sticking with pushing GH as the mob soap/soap noir.

[Ann_SS]

I think that Frons and lots of other forget that it was Erica's modern woman persona that helped Susan Lucci rise above the humdrum of the soaps. Erica had the first abortion. She was a career woman. She had lots of men and was sometimes dependent on them, but she always put her career ambitions before them. It was this along with Susan's unapologetic portrayal of Erica and her charisma helped to make Susan Lucci a star beyond Daytime. There are no female characters like Erica any more. Brenda is nothing more than Sonny's arm piece. All the promos and advertising in the world won't change that fact.

[AMCDYNASTY]

AMC gained ratings above 70,000.

[OLTL_fan]

Wow 6.59 million viewers watched President Obamas appearance on The View, the most watched episode ever. There should definitely be an ABC press release next week but GH wont be 2nd in W18-49 since The View got a 2.0 for this episode.

http://tvbythenumbers.com/2010/07/30/president-obamas-first-visit-is-most-watched-telecast-ever-of-the-view/58696

[Soapsuds]

The show had around a 4.0 to a 4.2 HH rating for Thursday.

[Saving ATWT]

I've said it before and will say it once again: Eventually, ABC will 'merge' AMC and OLTL in an effort to retain as many viewers as possible. It will be somewhat similiar to the manner in which AW stars traveled to ATWT but will be easier considering they are on the same network and AMC was a spin off. I could even see 'travel' happening between Llanview and Pine Valley with a few 'token' stars such as Erica Kane sticking around. I have little doubt, whether the name be AMC or OLTL, that a lot of the OLTL teen beat cast will be retained due to the fairly good demos. Considering OLTL is pulling better demos, I'm starting to think that the show has more name recog and street cred in 2010. I do think the finished product will be LA based but with Valente as EP.

Someone mentioned the condition of ATWT and I totally disagree. Yes, the writing is at times weak and the cast has become smaller; however, I love how they are using vets and will take an hour of Lucinda and Babs over the lame teens and demented vets on OLTL.

I still love last weeks info regarding Days and Y&R pulling something like 12 million hits per week online. If true, this means more people are in contact with soaps than in the 1980's. With this info, it is pretty hard to say the genre is out of touch or out of touch with mainstream culture. This is more an issue of the networks issues gaining ad cash via web viewing.

[marceline]

Soaps stopped writing for women at the same time they decided that minority viewers were worthless.

That would be a big old plate of hot garbage. The moment OLTL characters showed up in Pine Valley I'd stop watching for good.