I think GH's last scene will be a homage to CNN's Paula Zahn ad, where we see a photo of Jason and hear a zipper being lowered.

On the one hand, I agree. Yet, on the other hand, sometimes you don't need to see the story play out to know it's crap. It's a matter of knowing the characters and what they would do or not do under given circumstances.

Exactly. Besides, most stories are fairly easy to guess even if you aren't reading spoilers. Many fans over the years have tuned a story out even without knowing the details.

Essentially we've been watching to see "how it plays out on screen" not what will happen. Like everything, nothing will ever match what you imagine in your head based on the spoiler you are given.

As I've said on numerous occasions, though, soaps aren't supposed to be about "what happens next." If we are following the characters as closely as we're supposed to, we'll know what is going to happen. The question, though, is when? That's why that one dude told us to "tune in tomorrow," b/c that could be the day when the thing we've been anticipating finally happens.

Edited April 17, 201114 yr by Khan

2) The youth-craze infested all of the new soaps that premiered in the 1990's. No one can say CITY, SUBE, PC or Passions was a traditional soap. CITY/SUBE/PC all focused on a group of friends rather than a strong core families based soap, SUBE tried to reverse things and attemted to be more traditional but it failed as it still was a youth-centered soap, "Passions" came the closest to being traditional as it had a strong core family set-up, although it was teen centered and went off from anything traditional with its sci-fi tricks. I do give credit for PSSNS for attracting a solid teen demo, although "Passions" was a novelty soap, the teens got hooked and fast, although since there was nothing of substance there, they quickly lost interest as they grew-up. This is the difference between

soaps of the past and the failed 90's soaps, teens in the 70s 80s got hooked to AMC OLTL GH DAYS AW SB Y&R B&B ATWT GL.... but those shows still kept them interested as they grew-up into adults as they were traditional soaps that were multi-generational, there was no

"novelty" that wore off like the dreaded 90's soaps. And as a result, network execs made the decision it was impossible to premiere a new soap opera, a fatal mistake as it really wasn't that a new soap couldn't be successful, rather it was the flawed concept of a youth-oriented soap that the four 90's soaps all failed.

Those soaps being youth-centered didn't kill them. Those soaps being youth-centered when most youth couldn't watch them killed them. Teen dramas were HUGE in the 90s and 00s. There was definitely a market there, but I don't get why the networks thought they were going to get that audience in the freaking daytime. I don't understand why the Girls 12-17 demo is so freaking important when the vast majority of Girls 12-17 are in freaking school when soaps are on.

They should have just <Annie Wilkes>PUT THE COCKADOODIE YOUTH SOAPS IN TIMESLOTS WHEN THE COCKADOODIE YOUTH WOULD SEE THEM</Wilkes>.

My dream is to write a high school based soap that airs three nights a week at 10:30PM (central). That would work. Teens and young people might not be able to watch something every day at 11am or 2pm or 5pm or 7pm. But if you catch them when their day is winding down, they're in bed doing homework or on the phone or on Facebook or something? They're guaranteed to be there nearly every single night, no matter where they were or what they did during the day. Catch them at that time, figure out what type of show they want, and give it to them. Family Guy reruns have been going strong as hell on Cartoon Network for years now because they pretty much have a captive audience.

I'm glad this thread exists, even if it is about the cancellation of two beloved soaps, it proves how fans on this message board at least are still passionate about the genre and discussing the ins and outs of it.

Too bad mediocre soap writers on Twitter, like Tom Casiello, accuse us of doing otherwise.

A big part of what's wrong with daytime is the contempt for the audience that a lot of these writers, producers, and execs have. Will all fans ever like everything dished out to them? Of course not, but it doesn't mean they should be discounted and treated like animals being fed food. You can't take your core audiences for granted and wonder why the genre you work for it in shambles and dying.

Edited April 17, 201114 yr by Y&RWorldTurner

Wow, I guess it may be a cultural thing, but I don't think I could stand a main network that was 85% telenovelas.

I respect them, but the telenovelas often seem like very bad acted farce to me. Then again, I'm not fluent in Spanish or follow or any translation, so I'm definitely not the target audience for them.

Hispanics make up a huge chunk of key demos, especially in major cities, and non-Spanish soaps just didn't catch on within the community. No real effort has been made to even recruit these viewers aside from B&B. Also, the never ending 50 year saga like The Guiding Light probably is a thing of the past. We will either get some sort of mini series or a soaps that runs for 7 or 8 seasons. We will never get any sort of scripted drama that tapes 54 weeks a years. I'm suprised soaps haven't gone on summer break a long time ago. The ratings in warm weather aren't good anyway.

As mentioned before, the UK does soaps during prime time and this seems like a viable option for a mini-network like CW or MY. Y&R would make for great cheap programming and actually rates higher than 90210. The main problem is that soaps can not be repeated, sold on DVD or later sold into syndication. This was an issue dating back to the days of Dallas and has been a problem with Brothers and Sisters, Housewives, and Grey's. Also, the 'female' demo is hard for a major network because men (boyfriends, husbands) tend to swipe the remote control--this is why female oriented TV ends up topping the list of DVR shows.

I've noticed something odd going on. Back in the day, shows and even newspapers dropped the 'The' from titles. The Guiding Light simply became Guiding Light in the 1970's. Now, 'The Talk, The View, and The Chew have all opted to use an adverb.

Our mutual friend [...] has also told me that Cam is a guy who is genuinely grateful for his success.

That's wonderful to hear, Loyal. But must he say yes to every offer that comes his way? Even Susan Lucci, practically the only performer in this industry who has successfully used her level of fame to make herself into a "brand," has also exercised a little judgment in terms of business deals. Otherwise, we'd probably see her at the grand opening of a Golden Corral in Tuscaloosa!

I don't know why they ever changed it. I guess because people have jobs and have to do something to earn their check, so they decide they need to have a new theme. The other day I uploaded a video salute to Ruth Warrick that used that theme as a piano solo, and it really is pretty slowed down.

Such a beautiful version.

While I'm sure the writing for the finale will be okay, it's the little details that could be added in from a production standpoint that will be missing. JHC just doesn't have the history with the show. Does she even know about the original theme? Doubt it. I suspect they'll just use the current opening on the last day, the original theme music won't be heard anywhere during the episode, they'll use some random score from the current repetoire in the final scene. It's just going to be lacking. I don't anticipate any meaningful additions in production. OLTL is very lucky to have Frank Valentini, who has been there forever.

Hasn't Dallas done pretty well on DVD?

I don't think there's a divide either, not really. I never have.

I think OLTL made a lot of mistakes with the characters of Todd and Rex, and those mistakes encompassed more and more of the show. Their stories were pure hell in 2009. Yet, they were rewarded for this, and one of the few stories which, while not great, was truly unique for the show and took OLTL back to its roots (the Kish story and their extended friends/family/confidantes), was not only trashed, but the actors were smeared and a very obvious statement was made that minorities were not welcome.

And after that was stamped out, they went back to more lousy stories with Todd and Rex, and then the Fords. No wonder ratings collapsed. If the show had ever been able to or had the guts to fix what they did with Todd and Rex, then so much might be different now.

The truth is, the only ones who've hung in there - I mean really hung in there - and not just OLTL, but probably all the soaps - are those aged 50 and over. (And I'm being generous by including 50-year-olds. Really, I could go even higher, lol.)

http://twitter.com/robinstrasser

Robin strasser is now on twitter, let the mayhem begin.

(If already posted, I apologize)

Robin, I love you, but you're already thisclose to making Charlie Sheen look competent (to stand trial).

Speaking of Strasser, has anyone seen this TV movie she did during one of her breaks from OLTL?

I just stumbled upon the promo for it:

<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="480" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/BbaWXNhNyc4" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

I noticed this "Failure of soap and network executives to adapt soap operas to the changing world"

Let's put it this way: it's 2011, and not only can we still count the number of gay characters on soaps on one hand, but it's still actually newsworthy when a(nother) one comes out of the closet.

Robin, I love you, but you're already thisclose to making Charlie Sheen look competent (to stand trial).

Have you seen Catherine Hickland's tweets? I admired her guts right after the cancellation but today she went after Jenny McCarthy for tweeting something about soaps being cancelled, IMO it made her look kind of pathetic.

My thoughts on why the soap genre has died (aside from network over interferene and same old hack writer/producers)

1) The obsession with youth. Once upon a time, 70's/80's soaps would strategically go after the youth demo in the summers only, they would bring out the teen scene front burner, although the vets where still seen, this was designed to attract the kids home for the summer vacation, the show still was a balanced show, it wasnt 24/7 teens, so grandma, mom, and the girls (forgive me for not including the male audience, I know we exist, although for the purpose of this lets focus on the women demos) so the multi-generational viewers all watched the same show and all enjoyed it. Then all hell broke loose with the obsession with the youth, and the strategy to focus only on the younger characters and the older vets get pushed to the back. What happened? Grandma and Mom want to watch stories of adult characters not a bunch of kids, so they watched less and less, since soap opera viewing is one of the most relationship-based programs in broadcasting, by that I mean, we never hear someone say they started watching any of the primetime shows because a family memeber watched it first, although with soaps, we most always have that connection where we started watching because someone in our family/friends did.

Since grandma and mom aren't watching, then obviously the new generation is lost as well, as their children aren't watching either.

When soaps abandoned the practice of being multi-generational focused stories and instead just had stories on the teens/20-somethings, viewers abandoned in mass.

2) The youth-craze infested all of the new soaps that premiered in the 1990's. No one can say CITY, SUBE, PC or Passions was a traditional soap. CITY/SUBE/PC all focused on a group of friends rather than a strong core families based soap, SUBE tried to reverse

things and attemted to be more traditional but it failed as it still was a youth-centered soap, "Passions" came the closest to being traditional as it had a strong core family set-up, although it was teen centered and went off from anything traditional with its sci-fi tricks. I do give credit for PSSNS for attracting a solid teen demo, although "Passions" was a novelty soap, the teens got hooked and fast, although since there was nothing of substance there, they quickly lost interest as they grew-up. This is the difference between

soaps of the past and the failed 90's soaps, teens in the 70s 80s got hooked to AMC OLTL GH DAYS AW SB Y&R B&B ATWT GL.... but those shows still kept them interested as they grew-up into adults as they were traditional soaps that were multi-generational, there was no

"novelty" that wore off like the dreaded 90's soaps. And as a result, network execs made the decision it was impossible to premiere a new soap opera, a fatal mistake as it really wasn't that a new soap couldn't be successful, rather it was the flawed concept of a youth-oriented soap that the four 90's soaps all failed.

3) Since network execs were afraid the cancel a soap and replace it, we got the current soaps all being run into the ground. GL and ATWT should have been cancelled in the 1990's, but CBS was afraid to launch a new soap with ABC and NBC's disasters. If CBS were true to their HISTORY, GL and ATWT would have been cancelled and replaced with traditional soaps. CBS always cancelled a soap when things were clear the show had run its course, think SFT and EON, both those shows were the lowest rated CBS soap when they were cancelled but had higher ratings than some of the soaps on NBC and ABC, thats why those networks picked up those two cancelled soaps. SFT's CBS replacement was Capitol, after a few years CBS wasn't happy with the ratings so CBS cancelled it and premiered B&B. Putting aside any fan loyalty to any of the soaps I mentioned, network execs rightly cancelled soaps and replaced them with new ones, only the strong surives mentality was fair and it worked for the genre. Although since the debacle of the 90's soaps, network execs were afraid to try anything new, so we were left with a no win situation, the existing soaps had to grow ratings or as we have seen, one by one get cancelled. When networks refused to invest money in new soaps that is the defining moment that killed the genre, as without the normal pattern, that existed from radio to the 1980's, of when a soap is low rated it gets cancelled AND replaced and if the replacement is a hit great, if not, even that gets replaced until we find a hit soap, when that got thrown out the window, its all over cause its simply a downward spiral as what we have is no chance for a replacement and just cancellation after cancellation, until none left.

I actually agree that CBS sould have cancelled ATWT and GL pre-2000. ATWT was my favorite soap but the show fell apart after Marland--was even slightly bumpy even towards the end of his run. Lorraine Brodrick later made a total mess of the show creating a slew of new characters no one cared about. Probably ABC should have canned OLTL back then, too. New shows might have brought in a new generation of viewers.

Maybe a soap should be cancelled once it becomes clear that the show will never again rank number one. By the 1990's GL and World were both too top heavy with vets and viewers had already formed a strong (negative) opinion regarding each show. CBS was scared after seeing the failures over at NBC. Also, The staus quo was garnering enough money with little built in risk.

Catherine Hickland just needs to sit her pathetic ass down already. It was somewhat fun in the beginning, but no one cares now.