October 25-29, 2010

[DRW50]

I think they will continue to support Brenda as long as Vanessa wants to stay around, as Guza adores Brenda and needs to use her to prop his "wartime" heroes. It is always someone else's fault when the ratings fall, never Jason or anyone in his orbit.

[DRW50]

Those ratings for GH are laughable. I know they're not in the same story climax mode as OLTL is with the oh so thrilling Eli climax but surely the Balkan story is supposed to build viewers, not drive them away? It seems to me that Brenda's story is actively driving viewers away.

It's strange to see OLTL beating GH in 18-49, even if it's very narrow and might only be for a week. Isn't that GH's bread and butter demo?

Rylee = AMC demise. Please get it together Frons, AMC deserves better than this.

Looks like that tornado some of the press was hyping up for Y&R didn't really pan out.

[marceline]

It never should've been allowed to come to this and yet I have no confidence that he will change course. Frons has proven time and time again his willingness to destroy his shows rather than admit his mistakes.

It's weird to see that the bottom four soaps are only 154,000 apart in total viewers. There were more people at Jon Stewart's rally. And all but OLTL have dropped approx. half a million viewers from last year.

[JaySherman]

But by that logic, we shouldn't really be focusing on which soap is in 'last place' in the ratings as the soaps don't all compete against each other at the same time.

The focus should really be on how the program may do against it's competition and the numbers.

In the primetime nielsen ratings, Fox doesn't care if House on Monday has lower ratings than Grey's Anatomy on Thursday because they aren't directly competing against each other.

Yet it seems in the soap world, we go based of rankings when in many instances one program doesn't compete against another.

[MontyB]

Agreed! Hey, I'm still hating them for moving to L.A., but I would have given the show a chance, but there is just no way I can watch that madness. I think RB is cute as Greenlee is cute, but I can't stand Ryan at all. Don't even get me started on Kendall.

[marceline]

That's kind of true. It's not how the soap world thinks it's how people on soap boards think. These are the same people who come up with such gems as "I don't trust the ratings because they don't count everyone." (Well, duh!) or "The ratings don't count the people who watch on You Tube!" Boards are a bubble and some boards are filled with a lot more air than others.

[dtchicago]

OLTL is the number 1 ABC soap!!! Even if it lasts for 1 week, I still love it!

[Ann_SS]

We should be focused on how a soap is trending in the 18 to 49 women demo over months before and after sweeps, but I have given up on pointing that out on this thread.

BTW, I saw the head to head ratings. Let me the first to cry: Fight! Fight! Watch the OLTL and AMC fans go. Hair pulling, biting, and slapping. LOL!

[DRW50]

You're right about 18-49. I just looked again and GH does have more 18-49 female viewers than OLTL, but I'm still surprised they are this close. I thought GH always had a good lead over the other ABC soaps in this area. If this story - a popular longtime heroine many viewers grew up with returning and being in peril and reconnecting with old loves - isn't getting 18-49, what will?

They should have done a better job with the Robin/Lisa story, and brought Brenda into that.

[BlueLick]

I'd say for ABC it was another mixed bag week, not sure if the repeat break in the middle of the week broke up the momentum OLTL had coming off that 2.6 million viewers on Tuesday. ABC Soaps have really struggled late in the week most of this year and has had a huge impact on the average of their ratings. DAYS seems to be the one soap that can go up on a Friday. Considering sweeps started late last week this is sort of a bad start but we'll see how the soaps comeback early next week which is when they usually go up now in days.

For OLTL, I'd have to say excluding Thursday and Friday that it was a pretty good strong week for them coming out on top as the top soap on ABC. There's no doubt about it I can now see OLTL's recent swoom in interest back in the show that it is actually taking effect. Now only if GH and AMC can follow b/c these two shows have been horrible to watch.

Just wanted to touch up on the repeats that it seems like they did well, although the live audience isn't that large to begin with that isn't a huge decrease especially for AMC which got 1.7 million viewers on Wednesday and when its live it got like 2.1-2.4 million viewers so not that big of a decrease. Not too many shows on broadcast or cable can repeat in daytime with these kind of numbers in those timeslots.

DAYS is getting better and better and I can't personally wait to see it in HD for the first time on its anniversary birthday on Monday. I feel thought it may take DAYS sometime to get those numbers back up to where they were at earlier in the year b/c their just starting to get good about a month ago so they will need to keep it up the rest of the winter.

CBS' soaps are so far ahead of The Talk right now it's almost laughable. I originally thought The Talk was going to be able to hold most of B&B's lead-in like ATWT used to do a few years ago but that is not the case.

Just read an interesting article from another site that was written back in the summertime talking about how soaps are still received very well by advertisers so soaps are no where near dead just yet, it also touches up on the budgets of some of the shows:

http://www.tvnewscheck.com/article/2010/07/28/44005/new-lease-on-life-for-an-old-genre

[marceline]

Shall we order a pitcher of beer for the show?

*hands Ann_SS popcorn*

[Ann_SS]

Over the last few months (excluding sweeps), GH has not had a strong lead over the other ABC soaps in the 18 to 49 women demo. It has been a .2, occasionally .3 lead which isn't much when you consider the weekly fluctuations. This is why I was posting that GH was in serious trouble because of its losses in this demo. It isn't that OLTL is catching up to GH in this demo as much as GH is losing viewers at an astonishing rate. GH has the occasion good week, but overall it is the ABC soap which must be in the most financial trouble given its reputed huge budget and declining demos.

A cosmopolitan for me, thank you.

*happily takes the popcorn and leans back on the couch*

[Toups]

ABC should not have chosen Wednesday to air the old episodes. Don't they know that Fridays are usually the lowest days? Don't they have people to watch ratings trends?

[TeamEric]

OLTL tied GH in 18-49 demos at 1.0 and in raw numbers still lags behind GH amongst 18.49 females.

More worrisome for Guza/Frons, GH's October averaged far lower in viewers and in demos compared to September.

Oct 2009 Averages

Oct 2009 2,596,750 887,000

July's pre-Brenda averages:

Jul 2010 2,538,600 806,400

Oct 2010 with Brenda:

Oct 2010 2,439,250 772,000

OLTL in contrast is ahead of its September numbers and October averaged best viewership since February sweeps.

2010 Monthly averages:

Jan 2010 2,489,000 708,000 --- 2nd

Feb 2010 2,599,750 772,000 --- 1st

Mar 2010 2,395,266 716,400

Apr 2010 2,326,818 662,800

May 2010 2,375,000 725,250

Jun 2010 2,300,467 665,600

Jul 2010 2,358,524 653,400

Aug 2010 2,273,000 657,250

Sep 2010 2,344,750 675,250

Oct 2010 2,427,250 663,500 --3rd

[TeamEric]

The mid-week repeats in August should have taught them a lesson, don't pick middle of the week it kills Thurs/Friday numbers. Stupid move particularly last week as sweeps started Thursday.