November 1-5, 2010

[DRW50]

I have come to realize you're right, especially since most shows do not change, except to get worse, but I do think sizeable jumps or drops, which are more rare these days, do involve outside factors. Y&R lost 300,000 viewers the week of the whole reveal about Lauren's double.

[marceline]

I think he should take a break next week. Maybe treat himself to an extra loooong meal and a massage. Or better yet, fake a board outage. Remember when the board was crashing every week?

You should set it to music. LOL! I will say I find the drop on ABC's dailies from Mon - Tues interesting. The whole lineup dropped .2-.3. Someone on another board said it was probably because of election day. So if you add that drop then the pre-emption, last week was pretty unusual.

[TC]

As Agnes Nixon once said, "Make them laugh, make them cry, MAKE THEM WAIT."

[Scotty]

Whoa...what the heck is going on in this thread?

Toups made a valid point. We all have lives outside of the soaps and SON and, to be fair, more times than not those things have to come first before making a post on an Internet message board. And there are not "a lot of other staff members" at SON. For all intensive purposes, there are only two people who regulary write and post articles on SON (Angela and I -- along with Errol from time to time). And the two of us can't do everything. Also, we don't get paid for what we do here at SON -- we are all volunteers.

As for getting the news out in a timely manner....I can understand that to a point. More often than not, however it has been my experience that OLTL news seems to break when I am away from the computer. Like Toups, I can't set in front of the computer 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, just waiting to get some scoop to post. And I can't expect Angela to do the article for me if she is online and I'm not, because she has AMC and GH to cover, plus she too has her own life. That is why, the next time I get on the computer I have to play catch up with what news I missed, which makes it look like I was just too lazy to report on it to start with considering our members have already starting talking about the story in the Spoiler Island forum.

So that's why I think this whole argument is silly.

[marceline]

"Never explain yourself. Your friends don't need it and your enemies won't believe it."

-- Unknown

[PhoenixRising05]

Exactly.

It's not meant to be an attack. It's simply feedback and suggestions on how to make things better not just for the members but for the staff and administrators as well. I appreciate all the staff and administrators do. I may not post much anymore but I've been a member here for more than 5 years and lurked for two years before that. As I said, I could care less when the ratings are posted. I just saw someone make a reasonable point and decided to chime in because I do think the situation can be handled better for all involved. It's not any sort of childish drama and I'm offended that people are chalking it up as such when all me and others are doing is making suggestions on how to make things better. This isn't just about the members but staff as well. I get that the staff and administrators don't get paid to do this but there is a degree of responsibility involved when you volunteer to take on working for a site like this. That isn't to say you put it ahead of your own life but if you want this site to maintain a solid reputation, than you have to do all you can to at least be courteous. Is it so hard to make a post saying the ratings will be late? It takes all of 3 seconds to come up with that post or just make it a point to mention that when the ratings thread is opened if you know ahead of time you will be too busy to post the ratings and/or the staff can't handle it. At the very least, keep members informed. That's all. Very simple and not very time consuming at all. I highly doubt every single staff member is busy at once or not around a computer at some point in the day or night to at least chime in and keep members up to date. People don't expect the ratings every Thursday at the same time but to have it go well into the night and into the next day without any update from Toups or a staff member is something that is not very courteous and could easily be avoided. If the ratings are posted late, they are posted late. It's no big deal. But letting more than a day go by without any updates to the members as to why they are is not the way to go. Does it bother me, personally? Not really. It does bother others and rightfully so. That is why it should be brought up and I'm glad someone did because I certainly wasn't going to. I hate that it is filling this thread but there isn't exactly a suggestions thread and it's releavent to the discussion IMO.

[DRW50]

Of course when the ratings do come out only two or three commented

[marceline]

It's like junkies getting a fix. Everyone's got those sweet, sweet numbers flowing in their veins so now they're just sitting on the couch listening to Kind of Blue and thinking how cool it is that an ant can carry up to ten times its own weight.

[Bella20]

They are in a statistical tie for last place, which is why the arguments about OLTL, AMC, and GH don't make any sense, They are reaching the depths that ATWT was at last year.

[TeamEric]

I think it's obvious outside factors like weather and big news events do effect the ratings more than folks acknowledge in these ratings threads. Statistics are never based on one sample but multiples. I only track GH and OLTL long-term statistics. For example, despite this one week bounce back GH is significantly down from it's July pre-Brenda monthly averages.

[JNewt]

This is a mixed bag week, in terms of demos not the best of weeks but GH went up by two points and OLTL has held steady from its previous strong weeks. The only real disappointment was how low AMC has been sinking in the demo.

Good week for the two best soaps right now OLTL and DAYS. GH had a huge week but it always come through during sweeps.

DAYS has been renewed officially through 2013 and looks spectacular in HD right now so we know for sure DAYS will be around through 2013. The budget cutting plan has worked for the show so far and it has also done so for OLTL which will be around through 2014 but ABC can always cancel it since they own it but that's also the good thing about owning it you see all the profits so unless it really tanks in the ratings before then its safe.

source on DAYS' renewal: http://www.soapoperanetwork.com/soaps/days/news/3382-happy-45th-anniversary-days

CBS' soaps are not safe at all, I think B&B will definitely be your next cancellation for sure but B&B also has a great chance of finding a new home due to the fact that its the top soap overseas so it can be syndicated like it is over there. I highly doubt by 2013 or 2014 that CBS will continue airing soaps but NBC and ABC will likely stick to them.

[Gray Bunny]

And to think for the longest time (1987-2009), CBS had the most stable, consistent line-up while shows on NBC and ABC came and went.

[jpoliver78]

And we all know what happened to ATWT...canceled. Of course, ABC's soaps are different in that the network owns them outright and not a third party (Sony with "Days" and Y&R and the Bell's with B&B ).

While ABC's announcement that OLTL's executive producer and head writer had their contracts extended by several years and NBC renewed "Days" for two years are certainly encouraging, the networks will continue to cancel soaps when they are no longer financial beneficial for them.

If GSN had not already beaten ABC to the punch, I would have explored the possibility of relaunched long-ago ABC Daytime hit game shows "The Newlywed Game" and "The Dating Game" (again, GSN has a similar series called "Baggage"). Both could occupy an hour time slot, allowing ABC to cancel either AMC or OLTL (since we know that GH isn't going anywhere). Another alternative could be once the syndication deals for "Who Wants to Be a Millionaire?" expire, move it back to ABC and air it on daytime. Since "Millionaire" is produced by Buena Vista (another Disney owned company), the network would merely be trading one network owned series (AMC or OLTL) for another.

[TeamEric]

Updated GH and OLTL monthly averages:

GH 2010 Monthly averages:

Jan 2010 2,707,250 880,750 ---- #2

Feb 2010 2,864,500 1,000,000 ---- #1

Mar 2010 2,575,250 887,250

Apr 2010 2,666,200 878,600

May 2010 2,560,750 854,250

Jun 2010 2,397,750 789,250 ---- #11

Jul 2010 2,538,600 806,400

Aug 2010 2,562,000 829,250

Sep 2010 2,573,400 851,000

Oct 2010 2,439,250 772,000

Nov 2010 2,407,000 782,000 ---- #10

OLTL 2009 Monthly averages:

Jan 2009 2,453,947 808,600

Feb 2009 2,513,750 769,500

Mar 2009 2,691,950 820,000

Apr 2009 2,446,917 748,600

May 2009 2,353,900 780,600

Jun 2009 2,531,864 766,500

Jul 2009 2,515,571 745,800

Aug 2009 2,365,400 745,800

Sep 2009 2,477,000 740,400

Oct 2009 2,430,400 741,800

Nov 2009 2,532,750 736,500

Dec 2009 2,430,400 648,400

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 -- 11th

Sep 2010 2,344,750 675,250

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

Nov 2010 2,368,000 623,000 --5th

Thru 11/5

[Kryptonite]

I just found out today that DAYS was renewed through 2013 so for me that overrides anything I saw in the ratings this week. That was the only renewal that I was worried about. I'm pretty much prepared for CBS to cut B&B and Y&R at some point, they don't surprise me anymore.

I know its ridiculous, they had something special there for 22 straight years and their giving up on it to go cheaper. I'll give NBC and ABC credit for sticking with their soaps during a bad time.