October 11-15, 2010

[Bella20]

This has been the case with every soap over the past few years. I think it's a case of people tuning in when something major is advertised, but not being loyal to any show. People are just grazing, but not interested in anything that is happening on any one show. Soaps have cultivated this type of viewer by focusing on stunts and plot driven storylines.

[MontyB]

Exactly!! I think both Zimmer and the stuff with Eli attributed to the bump last week. Anyway, whatever. It is the way it is.

[AS THE WORLD TURNS]

Saving ATWT I though Y&R repeats would beat OLTL and have a 2.0 but that didn't happen

[Saving ATWT]

I never said daytime viewers were to conservative to watch black characters. I said networks were chasing the white demo due to studies suggesting whites had more money. NAACP did a protest on this issue about ten years ago regarding the lack of black characters on TV (daytime and primetime) as compared to the 1980's. At that time, UPN was the only network featuring African American characters, probably in the hopes of being a niche network, and selling ad time at a huge discount. This discount wasn't just about ratings but also due to the income level of the network's key demos. The major networks lost interest in attracting black viewers about 20 years ago and casting choices reflect this. A show like Generations on NBC 20 years ago wouldn't eveb be possible today. I do think cable plays a huge role in this with the major networks trying to push blacks to BET, gays to LOGO and old folks to Hallmark.

I do consider race and homosexuality to be two very different issues. Again, we don't see a ban on inter-racial marriage in California but the state did approve a ban on same sex marriage. To break it down, I think we live in a really homophobic nation and that all those people against same sex marriage probably hated KISH and NUKE. I'm gay, it sucks but please down kill the messenger or try to tell me that Americans are somehow more progressive than they appear. If we were a progressive nation, gay marriage wouldn't be banned in many states and bullies would not be killing other kids. PGP sort of proved this when they never allowed gay sex scenes and were so careful with the issues of kissing. I am guessing PGP thought asexual gays might be somehow more acceptable.

Again, don't kill the messenger and turn me into the bad guy. Blame the networks, production companies and ad buyers.

[DRW50]

There's a big difference between people opposing gay marriage and people tuning out of a soap because it has a gay character or same-sex relationship. And soaps have received protests against interracial relationships all the way up to 1998, when no states were talking about banning interracial marriage.

It's too complicated to say that some type of anti-gay sentiment in public life means ratings losses for soaps. There was no ratings drop when Nuke started on ATWT. The ratings drop occurred months later. There wasn't a ratings drop when Kyle and Fish started on OLTL. There wasn't a ratings drop when Bianca had major stories on AMC in the first half of last decade.

I don't feel like justifying the bigotry of networks and producers because of some sort of blaming of viewers. I think that the hostilities and prejudices of network people are there no matter how the public reacts. It's not as if soaps are in a position where they even need to worry about offending a lot of viewers. They have played it safe for years and years and their reward has been massive ratings drops.

[marceline]

Maybe I'm reading this wrong but are you saying that soaps stopped getting protests about interracial relationships in 1998? Because...no. The hate is still continuing to this day. I've misunderstood you, haven't I? Please tell me I've misunderstood you.

[BlueLick]

OLTL in fourth place is something that I would've thought I never see happen after ATWT got canceled I thought it would automatically be the sixth place soap but its proved some of us wrong. OLTL seems to have hit a resurgence and oddly enough its come after ATWT left the airwaves. Every soap board that I go to the hot topic is something about OLTL, its been a long time since its had that type of attention. OLTL's positive sign from last week was its ratings on Friday which had been a piss poor day for it during the week the last month or so. Obviously that carried over into this past Monday but not sure how its going to hold up the rest of the week just yet. The cool thing about OLTL is that they have a sweeps type storyline playing out right now and its still October not November show it just shows you how good the writing is for the show right now.

As for the other soaps specifically on ABC, GH has been pretty high and its been high consistently it was not that long ago when it was reaching close to last place. I don't know what to think of Marcil's impact on the show since the ratings were already up before she got there but she's not hurting the show that's for sure. AMC on the other hand is a mess right now and has been for sometime. Too bad OLTL has Ron C. b/c they need a writer like that badly. I think AMC's problem goes deeper than just the quality of the show but the cast too its downright awful. Lindsay Hartley whose coming in December is a move in the right direction but it depends on how they use her which I don't think will be good. AMC needs to resurge in 2011 with some rebuilding b/c its now the last place soap and its time to step it up. I myself only take glimpses at AMC every week but never leave it on there b/c its too bad to watch, hopefully this show can turn it around.

CBS' soaps B&B and Y&R are always making it hard for Leslie to pull the switch on them anytime soon. B&B seems to be the one soap outside of OLTL to have consistent gains every week. After seeing The Talk's ratings this week bleeding a million viewers from B&B is not a good sign.

DAYS has just fallen off the deep end and it can't get back up. With OLTL stealing the spotlight its going to be hard for DAYS to have a good November but hey on the bright side they'll live to see another year and their switching to HD on the 8th of November.

[Saving ATWT]

I have family members who stopped watching World Turns when Nuke came on the scene. My family is fairly average, not red necks, educated and of mixed race. Homosexuality and race are very different today in that homosexuality has been manipulated into an emotional wedge issue polarizing elections, churches, schools and media. Many viewers, sadly, see gay as sin or a choice and this is where soaps run into trouble. Fox news has done stories about gays on TV and this all being part of some liberal 'brainwashing' agenda. Fox is the number 1 news channel and a lot of people believe this BS. Kay Adlen has talked about the drop in Y&R ratings when Kay almost went gay in 1974. I don't think much has changed since then.

Race on soaps is a lot different. I remember Dee Dee saying something about networks not caring whether blacks even tuned in. She's right, networks aren't going after that demo and therefore don't care. Demos have ruined television. They encourage networks to create these form fitting shows in order to make max profit.

[DRW50]

I wasn't saying it stopped in 1998. I listed 1998 because that's the last time I remember the issue getting a lot of publicity (because of some of the hate mail sent regarding Neil and Victoria on Y&R). I know it's continued since then, as that's one of the reasons soaps are still so hostile towards interracial relationships.

[DRW50]

Race is also manipulated into an emotional wedge issue. Race-baiting and open loathing of black people and spreading of ugly stereotyping about black people has become very popular, and is almost taken for granted now. Hostility against Latinos isn't far behind.

Unless there was a fast and sustained drop when Nuke started, as there was with JoAnn and Katherine on Y&R, I don't know if it was a big drag on the show. I'm sure some people tuned out but some fans always tune out for some reason or another, especially in recent years.

[Southofnowhere]

When Malcom left Y&R so did 1 million black women.

[Saving ATWT]

Yes, Carl, race is still a wedge issue, however, there has been a long cooling off period since the height of the civil rights movement that has made possible things such as the election of Obama, Will Smith being the highest paid actor in the world, Oprah as queen of daytime and a major cross over of 'black' culture into the mainstream. Newsweek's Jon Meacham last week called the battle for gay rights the 'civil rights movement of our time'. While the drop for ATWT was slow, it still happened, and PGP handling off 'the kiss' proves that gay on daytime has yet to in any manner become mainstream. Is it realistic to think that the many people who voted no to gay marriage would tune in for gay story? If they watched the story, would they be rooting for Nuke even though they are against his right to marry or serve in the army?

[marceline]

*Breathes a sigh of relief*

Thank goodness.

[DRW50]

How many of them were watching ATWT in the first place?

I think unless a sharp drop happens at the time of a story we can't say it was the cause. ATWT had many problems in 2008, when the ratings started to fall. The other problem is that even within the Nuke story, the writing was abominable. If someone hated the writing so much for Amira and the Z twins and all that, and they tuned out, then someone might look at that and say, "See, it's those gay characters," when really the situation was more complicated.

Look at how popular Reid was. He probably would have been a very important character on a show that knew what it was doing.

[Saving ATWT]

By the ATWT finale, the show had one of the youngest audience by percentage of viewers on TV. This is different than demos and is about how much of a shows viewership is between 18-49--right now GH is #1 at 33 percent. It is possible that ATWT lost, for good, certain viewers and at the same time gained new viewers. Nuke produced a lot of press on ET, CNN, FOX News and controversy gets attention and ratings. I do find it interesting that ATWT did so poorly during the final week and did not reach GL levels. GL was weaker ratings wise yet surged during the final week. It has been suggested that viewers react more btter to lesbian than gay male story. Neither of us will ever be able to answer the real questions here. I'd love to see the CBS/PGP demo breakdowns. Nonetheless, daytime does get a more conservative audience than primetime and its hard to believe an anti-gay voters would tune into NUKE or KISH. How would an anti-gay marriage voter relate/invest in gay story? Did the pro Prop 8 voter in California want NUKE or LURE? The answer is neither because that person is a homophobe.

BTW, I loved the Z-Twins. The writing was rushed but the characters were great and the brother/sister NOT reveal was good.