August 9-13, 2010

[marceline]

There's no spin report yet though, is there?

[me4ryky]

Not for ABC daytime, as of yet

[OLTL_fan]

Still early. ABC didnt release their other reports today but Jimmy Kimmel.

[Toups]

I think ABC included the Tuesday 3pm repeat in the ratings.

Let's just say ABC will not be happy about this week's ratings!

[OLTL_fan]

Did they really? That would be dumb.

[me4ryky]

Dumb only if the repeats lowered the ratings. I know several people who have stopped watching daily but tuned in to see GH back when they enjoyed it.

[marceline]

Frons should be packing up his desk as we speak.

[OLTL_fan]

That would be every ABC soap fans dream come true but unfortunately he aint going anywhere.

[MontyB]

I'll co-sign the first part, but doesn't anyone think ABC will have to eventually do something about him? It's hard believe the "suits" are going to be happy with him if "Brendugh!" is a failure.

[marceline]

You can only screw up so big, so often before it attracts the attention of the wrong people.

[OLTL_fan]

And especially him pre-empting AMC and OLTL. Now fans of those shows that dont watch GH will laugh that Brendas return didnt bring in the ratings.

[JaySherman]

I think this just confirms what I already suspected.

VM was treated like the second coming of Christ and it sounds as though her return did nothing for GH. If it had, I suspected we would have seen a big press release about it but all is quiet.

I've seen posters here and on other boards insisting that if a specific actor or character returned to a show, then that would solve the ratings issues. Examples given were Roger Howarth as Todd or REG as Evangaline on OLTL. I've seen comments insisting that either or both were the "most requested" returns and if they came back, the ratings would go crazy.

Soaps are made up of many characters. No one character controls the ratings.

If an actor comes back and the story is not there, it won't work. OLTL ran into that issue when they got Andrea Evans back. The time they had her coincided with on screen sister Erika Slezak going on vacation and was also last minute. So, they had to make up something quickly AND she didn't have a key person in her past on the show during the time she was there. John Loprieno returned as Cord for one day but didn't want to stay longer because he had closed the book on Cord and Tina a long time ago.

I don't fault the writers for that as they had to work with what was given to them.

The story they made up for her was true to her past but wasn't enough to get viewers to stay.

[dragonflies]

So basically the Brenda pimping backfired? LMAO

You would think Frons would know better than to pimp one actress at another show's expense

[DRW50]

A lot of fans of a character will assume the ratings will go up. That's the problem with Guza -- he's a fan of characters. He's not a writer. You can like a character and still be a writer but you can't cripple the entire show for them. That's what Guza does. It's no surprise that JJ's return meant Lucky was suddenly best friends with Jason, in spite of history saying they are just the opposite. And it's no surprise that VM had to go around reading lines about how Brenda ADORES Jason, even though that's not true. I would imagine the many fans who gave up on GH because of how obsessed the show has become with the mob would have tuned back out in their mind again as soon as they heard about that.

I can't even compare this to what happened with Andrea Evans because Andrea did not get a tenth of this promotion and she was signed for a shorter amount of time. I also thought Andrea was much better than Marcil has been so far. They just never cared. I honestly think that in some ways ABC wanted her to fail, and probably wanted A Martinez to fail. The problem is they are so incompetent, they fail even more when they actually think they are making an effort.

If the ratings don't go up with her return, as they didn't for the golden boy JJ, then that just confirms that the old GH is dead. It's time to tear it down once and for all and start over with a new outlook for Port Charles. Otherwise the show is just going to continue an increasingly quick death anyway.

[marceline]

I think people need to calm down a bit. Brendakkah tanked, yes but it's only been three days in Nielsen time. Nobody can bring or lose viewers in that amount of time because that's not how people watch. Nothing, nobody, no amount of promotion makes hundreds of thousands of people tune in or out in a couple of days. VMG's real value will be seen over the next couple of months through sweeps.

The failure here isn't VMG's, it's Frons'.