How Did P&G Lose Its Way?

[Paul Raven]

The rise of the ABC soaps seemed to completely unbalance P&G.

First up AW drops from #2 to #8 in a matter of months,ATWT loses it's 20 yr status as the #1 show. Their big new hope with Lovers and Friends is a disaster and the revamp FRFP does no better.SFT begins to soften.

Only GL weathers the storm. Texas flops and EON suffers from not benefitting from the ABC rise.

I can imagine there would have been a behind the scenes panic.What had been working for years no longer applied.They needed a new direction-but what?

What do posters think P&G should have done in the face of it all?

[DRW50]

I never would have approved a second Lemay/Rauch show. If Lemay had left due to this being turned down, as he may have done, then so be it, as he ended up leaving anyway. I also would have worked very very hard to keep the Matthews family front and center and expand the family.

I would have had more faith in the tenets of Search for Tomorrow and focused on them instead of overusing some of the younger people and bringing in too many new characters. They seemed to have a good thing going around 1979 or 1980 but then it all fell apart.

I never would have approved Texas at that point in time. I never would have gone with a 90 minute expansion of AW.

I don't really know what to say about ATWT, but I would have kept Susan (was it Marie's choice to leave?). I wouldn't have killed off Dan, although I might have written him out. I would have kept Don Hughes around and made an effort to bring Penny back as well, along with Amy. I would have possibly given her another daughter as well for the type of "young love" stories that the soaps were pushing at that time.

[Mitch]

ATWT badly needed updating, but not to the extent that the core was ripped out. I can see having Dan die...where were he and Kim to go after that? (and of course, it paved the way to Bob and Kim which we all knew should happen) Focusing on the Stewarts younger daughters helped to youthify that family and also, got Bruder playing closer to her own age. The obscuration of the Hughes was the worst part of the change. I would have kept Don, but maybe killed Mary off and had him turn darker (he was always more shady ) to give the Hughes some tension within (always thought they should have done the same with bringing back a son for Ed and Rita who was a bad apple and caused tension in the family.) He and Bob could have clashed with Nancy and Chris disapproving of his antics (when they broke David and Ellen up a few years later I thought it should have been Don who dated her, instead of some nobody doctor.) I would have also brought in the farm family relatives of Chris, maybe had Chris' brothers grand daughter come to live with Chris and Nancy, everyone thinks she is sweet farm girl but she is really a conniving social climber ala Lisa. Bringing in Scott Eldridge early at this point, with the Hughes hootchie chasing after him, causing Lisa and Nancy to butt heads, etc.) ATWT at that time was coasting on its past success, and it needed a jolt. I guess I would just shake up the core instead of ripping it apart.

[DRW50]

I wouldn't have killed Dan mostly because it's very final and I think that type of thing slaps viewers in the face, especially since they never really got to play out the story of Betsy learning she was his daughter (didn't she learn this right before he died?). I think they could have brought in a Nick Andropolous type character, if that's what they felt was needed, to tempt Kim away from a dull life she thought she wanted but quickly grew to resent.

I definitely wish they'd brought in the bad seed brother of Chris. I think bringing Edith Hughes back might have been interesting too. What if she brought out Nancy's insecurities, perhaps made a play for David, encouraged Lisa to return to some of her more wicked ways.

[Mitch]

I think at that point and time bringing in "old," characters like Chris' sibligns were out of the question, as they werent even utilizing Chris and Nancy as patriarch and matriach of the show. Always wonder if that was a Dobson decision or PG, as they were brought back four years later and restored to their proper positions (I loved the costume party Lisa had, and Nancy and Chris came as George and Martha Washington.) The Hughes suffered in that time frame as they didnt have any "younger," relatives to play..Tom was aged to his 30's and Frannie was still a little girl. The Stewarts had Betsy and Dee and Annie so they were fine. I wonder why Irna didnt write it more kids for Bob and some kids for Don, to extend the family.

I also wonder why they didnt simply bring in another branch of the Bauers on GL. Bill Bauer had another son who was never seen, Hope was off screen so long she could have married several times and had several children, as Mike Bauer could have.

[Max]

As bad as Frons was, I think that MADD was far worse. That because ABC made serious efforts to save their soaps (though those efforts were misguided) while P&G did absolutely nothing and was content to just let their soaps die. The irony in this is, obviously, the fact that ABC received far more wrath than P&G did because the ABC soaps had much more rabid fans.

[DRW50]

I think MADD had the idea of making the P&G soaps like ABC. And that was about it. When this didn't work, she lost interest. The worst part was this kept on and on at ATWT, and gutted the small amount of potential left in the show. I still cringe at the idea of Roger Howarth phoning in his performances for 7 years and being hyped as a big name.

I take that back...I think the very worst part was that she let Michael Malone go to AW and blatantly redo his OLTL material. Come on. It was ridiculous that they had a "comedy" story of Grant running for mayor, a blatant knockoff of Alex running for mayor. Alex had always been written as a quasi-comedic loon. Grant had been written as a very dark villain, who had killed one of the show's most beloved characters. Why are you telling ha ha stories about him being mayor? It made the town look like it was full of fools.

[saynotoursoap]

Max, could you expand on your ideas about ABC fighting hard to save their soaps? You have postulated this several times. Out of idle curiosity, could you provide specific examples, please? Thanks!

[Max]

Saynotoursoap, please refer to the following blog entry, written by a former employee of ABC Daytime:

http://www.theblowoff.com/2011/04/soap-opera-blow-off-former-executives.html

This paragraph in particular lists myriad examples of what Frons did to try and save the soaps:

Now, I concede that these efforts were misguided. But even the biggest Frons hater has to admit that this is much more than what P&G did to save their soaps.

By the way, I'd like to thank you for all the time and effort you have put into your excellent YouTube channel. It is really appreciated.

[MichaelGL]

Misguided indeed, but I too am one of those people that think in some cases Frons did receive a "bum rap" for his running of the ABC soaps. When you look at the idea of "Let's hire the Head Writers who penned each critically acclaimed era of each of our soaps" it's not a bad idea per se, especially if it had been attempted at AW or GL(Attempting to bring back Swajeski or Long/Curlee). But at ABC? Frons brought back McTavish and Malone, miscalculating how far from grace both of these writers had fallen, only keeping in mind of their track records at the ABC soaps.

[DRW50]

The problem is whether he miscalculated or whether his interference drowned them out. His issues have been all over AMC, through McTavish and through many other headwriters. While McTavish certainly must have come up with some of the worst (the unabortion), the dregs like Rylee, I don't blame on her. And I truly think Rylee are what drove viewers away for good.

[Paul Raven]

That list of ABC 'efforts' speaks volumes.It seems instead of sticking with one direction they were forever trying something different and changing courses.

Maybe I am being too harsh and of course hindsight is a wonderful thing,but some of those decisions seemed foolish from the outset. I mean,an "AMC' perfume?? I guess once the soaps stopped being a cash machine for the networks, and became so much more visible,it was so much harder to make them worthwhile financially.

Inevitably,the ratings were going to fall,just as they have in primetime,but what made it to air didn't help.No-one could say today's show have the impact of earlier times.

[danfling]

As an example of how Procter and Gamble seemed to want to let its soap operas die:

1. Procter and Gamble cancelled Search for Tomorrow (supposedly because it wanted to begin 1987 or whatever year it was as a year without any expense losses). NBC wanted to continue the show for several more months and asked that Procter and Gamble continue the show, but the company refused.

2. At the time that NBC was cancelling Another World, ABC tried to buy Another World. Procter and Gamble refused to sell it. Then, ABC asked for the rights to the Felicia character to move to ABC, but, again, Procter and Gamble refused.

CBS toyed with the idea of, rather than expanding As the World Turns to a full hour, to lengthen both Search for Tomorrow and As the World Turns to 45-minute shows. The decision was not not to do so, but I think that this would have lengthened Search for Tomorrow.

[Mona Kane Croft]

I think the beginning of the end for P&G soaps was the cancellation of Texas. Texas was touted as the "new soap for the 80s," but it was, more-or-less, a total flop. Sadly, everybody aleady knew that the "not-so-new soap for the 80s" was General Hospital. TPTB at P&G never seem to have understood that. Aside from the failure of Texas, they had pulled the ratings-grabbing writers of Search for Tomorrow to create this albatross. And, that set SFT adrift with no rudder for the remainder of it's run.

A couple of years earlier, P&G had made it clear to Another World's Rauch and Lemay, that they wanted AW to become a more traditional soap opera -- meaning more similar to ABC's All My Children and One Life to Live. Sadly, dispite the exits of both Lemay and Rauch, AW never really achieved "traditional soap" status -- probably because of 20-years of bad writing.

Guiding Light was P&G's last real success. During GL's Marland era, the show performed amazingly well against ABC's power-house, GH -- and attracted the youth demographic. Later, Pam Long's work on GL kept the ratings high, although long-term fans (Bauer fans) were disappointed.

As the World Turns made it through the late-70s and early-80s, simply on it's own steam. The show was pretty bad during this era. Attempts to update the show weren't working on a creative level. Still, ratings were decent enough to carry-on. Around 1984, Doug Marland was hired to write the show -- introducing a new era of critical and ratings success.

So -- starting with Texas, P&G's soaps were picked-at, and picked away. I think P&G lost heart, when their "biggest soap ever" -- Texas, was a failure.

[DRW50]

P&G were the ones who let Rauch and Lemay change AW from a traditional soap in the first place.

They never should have created Texas. They should have spent more time fixing their other shows.