February 28 - March 4, 2011

[Kylie]

Nope. I don't really see anything, anymore that justifies one staying and not the other. They're both all but dead. (I think both COULD be saved, which is sad)

IF there is an announcement coming, I do wonder if it could be a matter of ABC Daytime wanting out of the soap business. Both are going, one first, the other 6 months later. GH's future will be decided a later date.

[Angela]

For now, I think the next step (for 2011-2012) should be to reduce AMC/OLTL to a half hour each to open up an hour for new programming. Then cancel them together. That will leave 1 soap on each network.

Did something happen on that Thursday? Outside of what was on each ABC program (weather, pre-emptions)?

ETA:

I apologize for totally forgetting that B&B exists. With its international success I don't know if they'd cancel B&B anytime soon.

[Sylph]

+

I think their model might, or should, be a little more complex. But it doesn't matter.

What I want to know, given these shiteous B&B demos, could CBS end the contract before the cycle is up. It's only half a million viewers ahead of AMC, which is, in these circumstances, a lot I guess.

Oh, well.

[marceline]

I hate the idea of half-hour soaps but I think your solution is a really good one.

[Carolyn1980]

BTW, for those interested in the ratings.....specifically the women 18-49 demographic....

Unlike the household ratings and total viewers, which cannot be compared (since there may be one or more viewers per household), the women 18-49 rating and women 18-49 viewers are directly comparable. There are 65,970,000 women 18-49 in the US (Nielsen updates this every September; this is the most recent statistic, and the one on which all women 18-49 ratings are based until September 2011). Because of this, if a show gets 1% of those women (.01 x 65,970,000), or 659,700, the show receives a 1.0 rating in the women 18-49 demographic. Because of rounding, a rating from .95-1.04 would also receive a 1.0 rating in the women 18-49 demographic. Based on this information, we can list the ranges of women 18-49 viewers that will correspond to a certain women 18-49 rating.

For this year, the following ranges correspond with the following ratings for the women 18-49 demographic (keep in mind, this is only good for September 2010 through September 2011).**these are approximate, assuming Nielsen rounds based on the nearest hundredth of a percent...if they go beyond that, these ranges may be 3,000-5,000 off, but no more than that***

363,000-428,000-----------> .06

429,000-488,000-----------> .07

489,000-561,000-----------> .08

562,000-627,000-----------> .09

628,000-693,000-----------> 1.0

694,000-758,000-----------> 1.1

759,000-825,000-----------> 1.2

What's interesting about knowing the ranges is that we can tell just how far a show came from being 0.1 above or below.

This week....

GH, 811,000.....not terribly far from a 1.3

DAYS, 694,000....got a 1.1 by the skin of its teeth

B&B, 572,000.....not too far from dropping to a 0.8

OLTL, 543,000.....solidly .08, though 20,000 more gets it a 0.9

AMC, 469,000......solidly .07, though 20,000 more gets it a 0.8

[Kylie]

Or just fire Frons. Let the writers write, and see what happens. I happen to think, even with K&S writing AMC...without Frons...the difference would be huge.

[dragonflies]

They'd be better off cancelling insead of half hour cause they'd be good as dead if they went to a half hour, it would just be delaying the inevitable.

AMC is first yeah and I agree Marceline, but OLTL isn't circling the drain as much as AMC is they have more working in their favor overall

[LoyaltoAMC]

I wonder too if ABC, at least with AMC, is not really concerned about these low ratings right now. It seems like they're trying to build some foundation with the show. They're savvy enough to know that transition periods really don't translate into ratings. Maybe they're hoping that the fruits of their labor will be a bump in the ratings next sweeps period when these stories begin to kick into high gear and the audience have accepted the new characters (the Castillos). I mean, Feb sweeps with AMC was very uneventful and I wonder if that was by design. More of my two cents

[Carolyn1980]

Except it won't happen, for two reasons.

1) First and foremost, financially, they save more money axing one of the shows and keeping the other at one hour. Even with cast cuts, rent/crew/producers/etc costs would not be cut in half.

2) Public relations. Canceling two soaps at once is mega-bad publicity.

[Sylph]

Yes, they can. They represent a ratio, a percentage. If that were not the case, it would mean that 20% discount means different things depending on a product you're getting it for etc. Nielsen is to blame for the whole mess, they shouldn't have said 1 rating point means XY people. It made people blabber utter bilge all over the boards.

[Sylph]

Nevermind, Carolyn, I now realize you were saying something completely different. LOL.

[Kylie]

At the end of the day, we really have no idea how ABC looks at these numbers. If they're thinking cancellation or if it is by design like you suggest. We're all just speculating. But you may have a point, there have been changes here and there with AMC a lot of slow paced movement. It's slower than usual. It's possible they are building to the next sweeps, and it is possible they KNOW what they're doing.

I don't know. But neither does anyone else. I think we're all just worried fans looking at numbers that we have come to understand as good and bad, and putting our own take on what we think the network thinks. LOL

We'll see.

[marceline]

Oh I know. I've already placed my bets in this game. AMC gone first, OLTL within a year after. My chips are on the table. AFAIC, there's no saving them and no delaying the outcome.

All this "what if" and "they could" is just people working their way through the bargaining phase in the belief that canceling one will save the other. It won't. In fact the one to survive will get picked apart the way an abandoned house gets stripped for copper pipes. Their budget will be slowly siphoned away, all the promotion will to the new talk show and the cast and crew will run to line up new jobs. If by some miracle, AMC avoids the chopping block they'll end up shooting most of their scenes in that infernal park. No thanks. OLTL on the other hand will be all teens and child actors.

[Southofnowhere]

Without AMC as a lead in u could chop an easy 1 million in viewers. OLTL is useless without AMC. GH with majot cast cuts can go it alone for a few years.

[Southofnowhere]

With AMC gone all the folks who only watch OLTL because it comes on after AMC will be gone.