I agree Marceline. (And I still have a hard time believing that AMC would go first, anyway).

And next week is anybody's game. GH ALWAYS bounces back (as sickening as it is). OLTL does not. (Although I do see some minor consistency developing)

AMC cannot seem to get out of that deficit in the 18-49. They are all toast within the next 5-6 years. GH will maybe outlast the other two by a year. Who knows. I think the sign will be the shows that ABC Daytime has in development. And what the heck happened to this Aisha Tyler thing? (whom I have always felt was a BORE, with the exception of her stint on E Television)

Does GH bounce back now? It seems like in the last, I don't know, 5 or 6 months, it's been a slow decline, and major stunts barely budge the numbers. I think VMG has only brought an increase for a week or two here and there.

OLTL is not doing better. There is absolutely no evidence of that. It is staying the same at best. It stays at 1.7 or 1.8. It moves and up in the ratings, only when other shows have a bad week. It will be comfortably back at the bottom within the next week or two.

I'll repost these, Jess, for your benefit. But viewership shows OLTL been on an upswing the last six weeks. October was OLTL's highest viewed monthy since February sweeps. It's not just AMC and GH crashing down, OLTL did post some net gains.

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

I agree Marceline. (And I still have a hard time believing that AMC would go first, anyway).

And next week is anybody's game. GH ALWAYS bounces back (as sickening as it is). OLTL does not. (Although I do see some minor consistency developing)

AMC cannot seem to get out of that deficit in the 18-49. They are all toast within the next 5-6 years. GH will maybe outlast the other two by a year. Who knows. I think the sign will be the shows that ABC Daytime has in development. And what the heck happened to this Aisha Tyler thing? (whom I have always felt was a BORE, with the exception of her stint on E Television)

Agreed of the 3 ABC soaps GH in the past has bounced back the best. But typically the bounce is from Guza blowing something. His sweep stunts are legendary which is why I find it odd his sweeps started with a whimper not his typical bang.

Does GH bounce back now? It seems like in the last, I don't know, 5 or 6 months, it's been a slow decline, and major stunts barely budge the numbers. I think VMG has only brought an increase for a week or two here and there.

GH had a decent September as that was it's best month since April. But it's been crashing all of October.

....

Edited November 7, 201015 yr by MontyB

I just remembered something. There were a lot of pre-emptions on Friday because of the bomb scare so that couldve hurt GH. Guess we'll see.

For any soap to be showing gains right now is impressive. Days has had a good two weeks but, aside from that, even the Bell shows has slightly slipped. ATWT was making large year to date gains but that was only due to how bad the previous year had been plus the show is now gone and therefore doesn't count. OLTL holding steady with small gains is about the only positive thing happening in Soap Land right now. Like the show or not, OLTL is now in a better position than both Days and AMC. With that said, I've got this bad feeling that Days will be the next soap to get the ax.

Sonny shot Dante during February sweeps typically a higher ratings month but still the spike was HUGE for GH. VM was pimped even more and yet has failed to produce any type of large spike.

We can all agree that VM's return was a huge fail of epic proportions and it will be interesting to see if Frons/Guza makes any changes with her storyline. Considering she ate the show changes should be imminent but Guza has tunnel vision. I have no doubt that he thought her return would be a smashing success without a plan B and now that it isn't, he is still arrogant enough not to change direction. Brenda and her men will continue to be the show's black hole till Ms Giovianazzo decides to leave. At least her return is proof positive that while an actor may be popular, the only thing fans care about is character and writing. To quote Micky D's - I'm loving it.

We can all agree that VM's return was a huge fail of epic proportions and it will be interesting to see if Frons/Guza makes any changes with her storyline. Considering she ate the show changes should be imminent but Guza has tunnel vision. I have no doubt that he thought her return would be a smashing success without a plan B and now that it isn't, he is still arrogant enough not to change direction. Brenda and her men will continue to be the show's black hole till Ms Giovianazzo decides to leave. At least her return is proof positive that while an actor may be popular, the only thing fans care about is character and writing. To quote Micky D's - I'm loving it.

Soap fans will forgive a lot and hang in there but the one surefire way to drive them away is to BORE THEM TO DEATH. Guza's GH has become mindnumbingly boring. I don't get it either as I expected one of Guza's classic huge explosive stunts to re-introduce Brenda. Instead she dithered in Rome for six weeks and bored us to tears. Sonny & Brenda's first scenes weren't even 1/100 close to the drama of Amazing Grace. THAT scene had power, built to this huge crescendo and drew fans in. Instead ho hum, Sonny suddenly out of the blue recalled he once loved Brenda so he chased her to Rome, saw her, talked for two days and blah blah blah he left. Horrible writing.

Guza has even managed the impossible to make Jason and Brenda's bitter bickering BORING. The rest of the show is just one fanbase getting bitch slapped after another so there's not another story that at least holds viewers attention. Guza deserves the bulk of the blame because you're right his plan A was awful and I don't see him making any corrections... yet.

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.

Somewhat true but we are not advertisers nor shareholders and this information is not really for us. Some some soap fans imo just want bragging rights proof, that their show is beating another most aren't looking at this at a business persecptive

Edited November 7, 201015 yr by chyti

It's interesting to see some of the reactions at Daytime Confidential, which is basically, bring back Jason/Liz. I don't care if they put Jason and Liz back together or not, but I would think that the recent ratings show no character or couple will budge numbers as long as the writing is terrible.

I'll repost these, Jess, for your benefit. But viewership shows OLTL been on an upswing the last six weeks. October was OLTL's highest viewed monthy since February sweeps. It's not just AMC and GH crashing down, OLTL did post some net gains.

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

Nice!

For any soap to be showing gains right now is impressive. Days has had a good two weeks but, aside from that, even the Bell shows has slightly slipped. ATWT was making large year to date gains but that was only due to how bad the previous year had been plus the show is now gone and therefore doesn't count. OLTL holding steady with small gains is about the only positive thing happening in Soap Land right now. Like the show or not, OLTL is now in a better position than both Days and AMC. With that said, I've got this bad feeling that Days will be the next soap to get the ax.

I haven't seen numbers that indicate that OLTL has made any significant gains this year. More importantly, like all soaps, it is down over 100.000 viewers in comparison to last year, which is more important than making week to week comparisons.

Some some soap fans imo just want bragging rights proof, that their show is beating another most aren't looking at this at a business persecptive

i don't think that's it at all. Some people are just tired of reading about how their favorite show is next on the chopping block, or how this one is a "brand" or the network doesn't own a show, so they're looking to get rid of it. IMO, it's all B.S. Unless someone here works at the networks and are talking directly to the "heads", no one knows what's going to happen to any show or what really goes on behind the scenes.

On that note, if anyone's show get a higher rating a particular week, then they do get bragging rights. It doesn't mean that the particular show is NOT in danger. Who knows? It's still ahead, so what whatever little victories there are, I say enjoy it.

.....and now I see Days is reportedly being renewed for two more years. And there it is........

Edited November 7, 201015 yr by MontyB

I think it's a mix of both. And it's all pretty sad no matter how you look at it. All "victories" are indeed tiny little ones as a show could be snatched off the air "for no rhyme or reason" (in our eyes on this side of the screen), and frankly, the shows have yet to show any consistency of strength in their storytelling. It's "OLTL is AWFUL" one week, "Wow, the show was HOT today" three months later, and the cycle continues. I don't get some fans' fascination with ratings anyway. I happen to believe one problem in soap fandom, especially among the more pressed fans in the online community, is that we've become less fans and more so-called scholars who think we know more than we do and concern ourselves with things that we haven't the full knowledge of, or business to concern ourselves with. If your show sucks, write a letter, write several letters, hopefully someone will listen, but diddling around with numbers and figures on the net playing "mine's bigger than yours" isn't going to keep your crap show from getting cancelled. A little playful "My show beat your show this week " team spirit is one thing, but when you're finna take off your earrings over a ratings argument you need to check yourself. There are SO many more important things to be worried about, regarding your show, let alone LIFE.