Zynga And Facebook Are Killing Soap Operas

[SFK]

So what's the answer then, wiping the face of network daytime drama clean, dropping the word "soap" altogether and plugging in a couple of teen series like 90210, One Tree Hill and Degrassi? Of course the problem again is timeslot, it's hard to build a buzz when your target audience is at school. Viewership can't be built on summer vacation alone, it's another animal when you're catching primetime Degrassi reruns during the day.

[DRW50]

The stigma has always been there though. There are a lot of people who never had interest in soaps but got started because of college, or friends who heard about something, etc. If the show is good enough or knows how to capture pop culture, then they will be more likely to get notice. Passions never translated it into solid ratings but they managed to get the attention of young people and of pop culture shows like Buffy.

I think there are always people who are not content with what is out there, because what is out there is very generic, quickly vomited up and replaced (most MTV shows, the Real Housewives shows, the Bachelor shows). There's plenty of void to fill IMO. People are bored and are looking for something different -- how many times can you have Real Housewives of Zabriskie Point or have more bad actors in The Hills or Jersey Shore? The problem is daytime isn't trying to appeal to these people.

The soaps are not trying to actually appeal to anyone who will ever have an interest in their shows. They are trying to appeal to pointless nostalgia for viewers who have been burned too many times, and to viewers who hate women, older people, and minorities.

And I do think viewers will know the difference between good soap and bad soap. Good soap will entertain them. Bad soap will not.

If a casual viewer tuned into OLTL and saw dead-eyed and bored leading men, pathetic women, bland teenagers and bland Edsels, ridiculous non-stories that make no sense, would they want to keep watching? I don't think they would. They would see that as bad, and it would also be bad soap.

[SFK]

And whatever stigma soaps may have, that hasn't changed the viewers' and the networks' interest in daytime drama, just not necessarily in the form of actors performing in serials. Look at NBC's choice to air Houswives in the day and package it with DAYS in promos. We had fake court shows once upon a time, now we have (LOTS) of real ones, Springer, *Murray* and beyond... It sounds trite, but it is cyclical. Look at how Springer, once steeped in ugly reality, has become increasingly scripted to the point of resembling an improv'd soap in a black box theatre. Soaps don't always deserve their stigma when the crap has been evenly spread around the TV landscape, what's criminal is that soaps betrayed and abandoned their full potential for excellence.

[Sylph]

The sad thing is... I think Shadows said something else, but in a slightly unfortunate terms, and you two ended up not getting what he wanted to say. That's how I see it. You both put too much emphasis on the word stigma and disregarded the other part of the post. A crucial one.

Same happened when Carl quoted me and mentioned reruns.

[alphanguy74]

I totally agree with that, but the problem is, the writers and producers seem to be faliling, trying to give "shock and awe", and it never works. they see decapitated heads spurting blood on the procedural dramas, i'm surprised they haven't tried THAT yet. And they think "We need to blow things up! we need to murder everybody!" So, true... they don't need to keep topping each other and do things that havne't been done before, but to get THEM to accept that is another matter altogether.

[DRW50]

No, I see what AMS meant. I think he has a good point. There's a stigma, and a lot of people will not look at daytime. The question is whether that can be changed. Some think it can't be. I think it could if a soap made an effort. I think it can be with an effort, but the networks do not want to make that effort or when they do they appeal to the wrong people. Now you get stuff like hiring a former star of "Gloria" for a day or a month. Who cares?

One big source of new viewers could have been the Us In Touch Weekly magazines, which have scores and scores of stories every week on the same few topics (Jon and Kate, Brangelina and Jen, the Hills, the Kardashians, the Bachelor, Jersey Shore). All of this is shallow stuff and has been worn down to the nub. Once upon a time soaps would have been all over these magazines. They control media narrative.

It might be too late but if the networks could market with these magazines they would bring in people who might want to try something out. But the quality has to be there. I'm not even talking about Harding Lemay or anything, I just mean watchable, addictive, buzz-creating. That's what soaps do not know how to do anymore but could again with the right guidance.

[SFK]

I got what AMS was saying, post #61, but such is a conversation, it grows, it builds, it riffs.

[Sylph]

Soaps are today just inept at family drama. They don't know how to do that. And when they do, they either use the worst clichés done in an antiquated way. Like being unfaithful or things like that. Completely divorced from reality of the way something dramatic as that would happen in a marriage of today.

All similar situations just go around in circles, recycling stories from the past.

[Sylph]

Step away from that word!!! That's what I'm saying. You based too much of your post on that. When the majority of it has to do with the way young people today interact with TV content. Stigma is, in that respect, not really a good word: I doubt people care whether you'll be stigmatized for watching soaps or not, it's just a deeply obsolete, old, un-updated genre that doesn't speak to them and their sensibilities. That are often shallow and superficial, but that is another matter. Nothing attracts them to it and with their short attention span, they have no time nor enough interest to invest in watching an hour of daily drama unfold at a horrid pace.

[DRW50]

Today there are more opportunities than ever to keep up with a soap without having to sit and watch for an hour. While some of those might not translate to ratings they're still around -- DVR, edited clips on Youtube, recaps, et al.

I think if a show was entertaining enough and knew how to get attention then they would get attention. I just don't think there is enough entertainment out there to make soaps obsolete. If anything the pool of entertainment has narrowed more and more over the last ten years -- everything seems the same. Soaps' failure has been in not trying to be themselves and not trying to use their potential to bring in new viewers.

[SFK]

And Carl, that sort of speaks to my earlier point, it's not as if soaps deserve *that* much derision if magazines like that and tabloid television are any indication of the sh!t folks like to eat. Soaps get grouped with the trash anyway. When celebrity A is having a scandalous affair with celebrity B it is a "soap opera", a juicy, sordid, tantalizing mess. The public at large (let alone soap fans themselves) are remembering the heights of Nixon, Bell and Lemay when they think "soap opera". Apparently, they just are no longer interested in true soap opera, the daytme scripted variety.

[Sylph]

What?!

You can watch something by — not watching it? OK, you can do it standing up. And for less than an hour. But how is that — watching?! And paying close attention to stories?

[SFK]

But there IS a stigma though! A preconceived notion, a prejudice about this "lame" form of storytelling that is cheesy and will not interest me and therefore I will not even bother to give it a chance, meanwhile I just spent the last ten weeks watching one on Teen Nick!

[DRW50]

Even when the world was supposedly full of women who could never leave their home and only had three channels and supposedly had absolutely no access to anything else of any kind, a lot of people didn't pay close attention. What matters is if you care and if you know the characters or what they're going through. Soaps don't have to be about big details. All it has to be is -- What is that person doing? Why is she happy/sad/angry? Can you believe what just happened? What's going to happen next?

They are given no reason to even be interested, although at this point even if they were they might not care enough to try soaps again. I just wish we had the chance to find out. Until we get a watchable, fun, entertaining soap that is a big ratings flop I will always wonder. I watched some of Orange County Real Housewives and saw bleached out frozen-face women falling over from bad boob jobs, verbally abusing and manipulating their kids or whining about how hard their lives are. I just can't believe that this show is such a masterpiece which daytime drama cannot compare to.

[SFK]

Exactly. And I love wow moments on reality TV, but whenever I sense that something is set up I am immediately taken out and I resent the show, the medium, for trying to dupe me. Leave the fiction to the real soaps.

And as I was saying earlier, soaps have taken for granted the simple qualities that made them special. You know, Iris and Vivien having a late night conversation on the sofa is magical. Two housewives from Orange County having a similar conversation is boring everyday life. The beauty of fiction, the way writers, artists give us glimpses of life and ourselves in reflective ways that our everyday existence doesn't always provide. It's not all about being shocking and explosive, and come on, even the most successful shows in primetime, our modern classics, aren't even about that 90% of the time. They have their big moments, but most of the focus is on character and story development. They don't write FOR the big moments.