23 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Wonder what the thinking was of killing off Frank Grant.? Just part of renewing the canvas and getting rid of a lot of the 1970's characters eg Linc, Tara, Phil. Frank could have stayed on as town cop and mentor to Jesse but he was killed off.

Could've been budget concerns too if they were adding cast members. Plus as easy as it is to say that they could've put him on recurring, the actor might've not been up to that.

On 7/22/2026 at 11:05 PM, Paul Raven said:

Wonder what the thinking was of killing off Frank Grant.? Just part of renewing the canvas and getting rid of a lot of the 1970's characters eg Linc, Tara, Phil. Frank could have stayed on as town cop and mentor to Jesse but he was killed off.

Or stayed on as a retired doctor, since that was the character's profession. 👨🏾‍⚕️😂

32 minutes ago, Jonathan said:

Or stayed on as a retired doctor, since that was the character's profession. 👨🏾‍⚕️😂

Of course, don't know why I thought cop!

11 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Of course, don't know why I thought cop!

The on and off Hindman years on Loving.

Killing off Frank was foolish. Having a heart attack and the recovery could have kept both him and Nancy on the canvas, even off contract, to advise Jesse and mentor Angie in her medical career. It's not like Les "Huggy Bear" Baxter would fill a tentpole role. 😄

I'm watching Pluto TV Canada and the original Jonathan Kinder is in this episode.

On 7/23/2026 at 4:24 PM, Sensuelle said:

Tonya Pinkins was only 29 when she joined the show?!

They obviously styled her older to play the mother of a teenager.

(She's always beautiful, and certainly never looked like a granny; I just figured she was in her late 30s, not 20s, because the character of 'Livia' obviously was older.... unless she had Terrence when she was 11-12.)

I'm a HUGE Pinkins fan, and am glad I got to see her twice on Broadway, but to be fair she has always "read" as old (well probably not when she was a part of the cast of the original production of the Sondheim musical Merrily We Roll Along in 1981 which had the concept by director Hal Prince to cast very young, new to Broadway performers--part of why it flopped so badly.)

On 7/23/2026 at 3:41 PM, bongobong said:

Do McTavish or the network execs mention losing Black viewers in their ratings discussions? If Google is to be believed, Shari Headley & Tonya Pinkins were both in the W18-34 demo themselves in late '94/early '95 when they left the show. As I recall, they weren't replaced with other Black actresses and only an increasingly cartoonish Taylor recast remained on the canvas as a regular.

Meanwhile, Y&R had the most popular set of Black characters ever on soaps at that time. I think it's entirely plausible that a big contributing factor in AMC's demo troubles, which started in '95, was that a lot of young Black viewers who used to watch the first 1/2 hour of Y&R before turning to ABC, started watching the full show.

That is such a good question, and point, and one that of course my white-ass never thought about. I will say that in the post McTavish 1995 episodes PlutoTV is showing right now here in Canada, the show still feels like it has a lot of black characters because of all the focus on Noah, Taylor (and I'm weirdly liking the Taylor recast this time--which I didn't back at the time) and Derek's constant presence in that storyline and everyone else's. The sublime Lynn Thigpen as "Aunt Grace" while never a contract player, is also on in this era multiple times a week (again in Noah's storyline but also used elsewhere--like with Gloria.) However, with the new focus on the Santos family (which was expanded right before McTavish was fired in 1995) I do cynically wonder if that was seen as enough racial diversity for the show. Belinda Kiefer also shows up every so often, and I have to say I did NOT remember she was even on the show until her presence was more prominent when Amelia Marshall would take over the role in 1996.

Not that it makes any difference in terms of representation, but Pinkins did leave the show on her own terms (and of course had a lot of personal issues at the time that lasted for a long while.) Not sure about Headley because the way they explain Mimi leaving Derek is written so oddly.

Edited July 25Jul 25 by EricMontreal22

I will add ALL of the McTavish discussion seems to be about how DAYS is stealing their audience and how she thinks they should go more in that direction--nothing about Y&R. I think this is probably mostly due to just how quickly and noticeably DAYS shot up in the ratings (and especially youth demos) at the time as AMC started to flounder--whereas Y&R was just staying steadily at the number one spot. I'd be curious to know if racial demos were ever measured to any major degree. I have heard anecdotally that AMC especially in the 80s had high black viewer demos, which makes sense, but not much else.

Did McT ever say anything about GH—their 90s ratings or her time there?

18 minutes ago, SheenaSoaper said:

Did McT ever say anything about GH—their 90s ratings or her time there?

I'm too lazy to move this to the GH forum but she only mentions GH a few times in her proposed soap "tell all" Here's one of them:

2

E

I will say that before that section, McTavish wrote about how she was taken on by JFP on One Life to Live as a consultant, to basically massage JFP's storylines into a coherent whole (which, frankly, adds, up for anyone who watched that dismal time of OLTL) until McTavish insisted she actually get HW status.

59 minutes ago, EricMontreal22 said:

However, with the new focus on the Santos family (which was expanded right before McTavish was fired in 1995) I do cynically wonder if that was seen as enough racial diversity for the show.

I think that's highly likely. It coincided with the rise of the Vegas on OLTL. Years later, Tim Stickney from OLTL (R.J. Gannon) revealed what some of us had already surmised in the 2000s: ABC had done viewer surveys which concluded white viewers were more comfortable with Latino characters in interracial romance and story, and thus used Latino characters to largely crowd out Black families and focused on them for diverse storytelling.

I don't think the Vegas on OLTL (or necessarily the Santoses on AMC) were intended at the time to supplant the Gannons or other Black leads, but it is how it evolved a few years down the line.

Edited July 25Jul 25 by Vee

26 minutes ago, Vee said:

I think that's highly likely. It coincided with the rise of the Vegas on OLTL. Years later, Tim Stickney from OLTL (R.J. Gannon) revealed what some of us had already surmised in the 2000s: ABC had done viewer surveys which concluded white viewers were more comfortable with Latino characters in interracial romance and story, and thus used Latino characters to largely crowd out Black families and focused on them for diverse storytelling.

I don't think the Vegas on OLTL (or necessarily the Santoses on AMC) were intended at the time to supplant the Gannons or other Black leads, but it is how it evolved a few years down the line.

That makes complete sense (and I was thinking about how the rise of the Vegas on OLTL was around the same time.)