I always subscribe to this theory and I think the proof is in the ratings. Pick your year and pick your highest quality soap, and their ratings trajectory mirrors the soap you would choose as worst.

Even at their most popular, soaps were pretty moronic with everyone in small towns sleeping with everyone else, and horrible hokey dialogue along the lines of "I took vows before God!" and shoddy sets, camera work, directing, acting, lighting and wardrobe to make it all look extra amateurish. And then after a year of tolerating every sin (except abortion) everyone sits down to christmas dinner together. I loved AMC but even at its height it starred a 5'1 supermodel with a large nose who we were told was the most beautiful woman on earth when clearly it was ridiculous.

Yes, but almost any TV show can be broken down this way. Even the highest quality shows can be ludicrous.

There's a way for a good writer to balance crazy or gimmicky story twists with tradition and family, to make you care, to somehow make it believable, to be true to characters, to tell complex stories that make you think and entertain you. Many soap writers were expert at this. They were just sneered at because of the genre they were in.

Now you can find very little good drama anywhere on TV. There are a handful, at most, and even then, many of them struggle to reach the level of something that Doug Marland or Claire Labine/Paul Avila Mayer came up with 5 days a week.

I don't think we should all just accept it, but nor do I think the methods being employed really work. What will work, I think, is watching the networks fail in the daytime programming over the next several years.

That is, if the networks don't yield the remaining hours to the local affiliates - which I'm not saying will definitely happen, but the possibility or threat is always there.

ETA: Also a question, let's say that by some miracle these shows get saved, then what? More of the same? Is that what I'm supposed to fly to New York and stand out in the street for? Dopplegangers and rape and everybody being white, straight, skinny and rich? I love AMC. It's my show. But am I supposed to keep fighting for a show that force feeds me Rebecca Budig and Cameron Mathison while Shannon Kane and Cornelius Smith are dayplayers? Because...no.

Exactly.

I think the issues of race, etc. in daytime are awful and need to be addressed on a permanent basis. But in terms of single characters, I care more about the genre than I care about MY couple or MY character or any of that bullshit. The genre is worth fixing and saving, whether that happens now or in five to ten years. I'm not gonna sit around with sand in my vag, sacrificing stray cats to make sure soaps become extinct just because Luke doesn't end up with Laura or John doesn't end up with Natalie or Nick doesn't end up with Phyllis or or Todd doesn't end up with [blair/Tea/Evangeline/an unwilling underage girl]. Hiding behind that snobbery when it's really about fangirl-itis for some is lame.

I think the issues of race, etc. in daytime are awful and need to be addressed on a permanent basis.

That's network television as a whole, really, and looking at what we have coming up in the 2011-2012 season, that sh!t ain't changing any time soon.

If I had given up each TV series, let alone each soap, that had failed to represent ethnic and/or racial minorities accurately, I basically would've stopped watching TV altogether w/ the final episode of "A Different World." And we all know how long ago that was.

That's network television as a whole, really, and looking at what we have coming up in the 2011-2012 season, that sh!t ain't changing any time soon.

Especially not as long as those that benefit (directly or indirectly) from the existing paradigm continue denying their privilege & refuse to accept any culpability.

Given the minority will be the majority in less than 50 years racism, sexism & homophobia has to be addressed if any real progress is to be made both in the serialized storytelling, the media in general & society as whole.

Edited May 17, 201114 yr by DeeeDee

Oh, I think more time will indeed be ceded to the affiliates - as Bill Carter points out, even late night is in trouble now. But there's likely to be some turf war as networks struggle to retain overall viability in the current and future landscape, and somewhere in there it's entirely likely someone will try to revive the soap, perhaps in the day or at night, perhaps existing brands or new ones. But I think it's equally likely content will end up online or on demand instead.

But there's likely to be some turf war as networks struggle to retain overall viability in the current and future landscape, and somewhere in there it's entirely likely someone will try to revive the soap, perhaps in the day or at night, perhaps existing brands or new ones.

Desperate as NBC is they will probably be the first.

Mark my words: there will come a day when all programming is exclusively on-demand and direct-to-viewer and there will be no such things as television networks.

Mark my words: there will come a day when all programming is exclusively on-demand and direct-to-viewer and there will be no such things as television networks.

It's starting already. Netflix has already announced they are producing their own first run show House Of Cards with Kevin Spacey, and if that does well there will no doubt be more. And with the advent of widgets and streaming right to the TV, Youtube is supposedly on the brink of rebuilding and rearranging the entire site into channels and is now in the movie rental business. If you want to watch Harry Potter, it costs four bucks.

You're right, of course. The key is when soaps find their place in that.

It's starting already. Netflix has already announced they are producing their own first run show House Of Cards with Kevin Spacey, and if that does well there will no doubt be more. And with the advent of widgets and streaming right to the TV, Youtube is supposedly on the brink of rebuilding and rearranging the entire site into channels and is now in the movie rental business. If you want to watch Harry Potter, it costs four bucks.

Exactly. And it doesn't matter whether Netflix's experiment w/ "House of Cards" is successful. As the wise man once said, "Someone has to be first."

That's why these networks' antics amuse me in the end. They're all struggling to remain relevant in an entertainment universe that's already passing them by.

The key is when soaps find their place in that.

And they will. I believe the "Irna Phillips of the Internet" is out there. I believe we are thisclose to seeing another GUIDING LIGHT being born. It's no longer a question of "if."

The big question is whether the telecoms will let that happen. The FCC does whatever the telecoms want, and they've already started getting more aggressive with caps, and throttling, to stop erosion from cable to streaming video.