Ratings from the 70's

[watson71]

It's a wonder that P&G and NBC never considered moving Somerset to the 3:30 PM timeslot following Another World, since Bright Promise did not work in the timeslot.  P&G had that mandate that their shows would not compete with one another, but they would move Edge of Night in 1972, Somerset technically could have moved to the 3:30 timeslot.  Not sure it would have helped Somerset's ratings, but it made sense from a scheduling standpoint to have a one hour block of P&G shows on NBC.

[will81]

From Daytime TV two weeks ending May 13, 1973

1. As The World Turns 10.4 38%

2. Another World 9.9 35%

3. Days Of Our Lives 9.7 35%

4. General Hospital 9.6 34%

5. The Doctors 8.8 34%

6. The Guiding Light 8.5 31%

7. The Edge of Night 8.2 32%

8. Search For Tomorrow 8.1 33%

9. All My Children 7.9 30%

10. One Life to Live 7.5 27%

 

 

From Daytime TV two weeks ending Mar 03, 1974

1. As The World Turns 10.7 30%

2. Days Of Our Lives 10.5 34%

3. The Doctors 10.2 34%

4. General Hospital 10.2 31%

5. Another World 9.6 30%

6. All My Children 9.5 31%

7. One Life To Live 8.9 26%

8. The Guiding Light 8.1 27%

9. Search For Tomorrow 7.6 27%

10. The Edge of Night 7.2 24%

The Top 5 Game Shows

1. Match Game 74 11.1 34%

2. Hollywood Squares 9.8 40%

3. The Newlywed Game 8.9 29%

4. Jackpot 8.7 32%

5. The New Price Is Right 8.7 27%

 

 

From Daytime TV Two weeks ending Apr 28, 1974

1. As The World Turns 9.7 36%

2. Days Of Our Lives 9.3 33%

3. The Guiding Light 8.9 32%

4. The Doctors 8.8 33%

5. Another World 8.7 30%

6. General Hospital 8.6 29%

7. All My Children 8.1 31%

8. One Life To Live 7.9 27%

9. Search For Tomorrow 7.4 31%

10. The Edge of Night 7.1 38%

Top 5 Gameshows

1. Match Game 74 10.1 35%

2. The Price Is Right 8.2 29%

3. Hollywood Squares 7.7 36%

4. Jackpot 7.3 32%

5. Let's Make a Deal 7.0 26%

Edited September 19, 2021 by will81

[Max]

Over the years, I've read on the internet that Gloria Monty took GH from last to first place. (Perhaps my memory is faulty, but that is what I recall.) I just searched through this thread, and it's certainly possible that I missed something, but I don't see any statistic showing GH dead last, though I know that many of the rating lists only showed the top ten soaps.

Based on the following season averages posted on Wikipedia, it doesn't seem like GH spent many, if any, weeks in last place:

*1976-77 Season: Ranked 10th out of 15 soaps, with a 7.0 rating

*1977-78 Season: Ranked 9th out of 14 soaps, with a 7.0 rating

*1978-79 Season: Ranked 2nd out of 14 soaps, with an 8.7 rating

*1979-80 Season: Ranked 1st out of 13 soaps, with a 9.9 rating

Is it possible that the "Gloria Monty took GH from last to first place" statement was one of those mistaken beliefs that people held onto for a long time (similar to how people erroneously believed that GL was #1 for a few weeks in 1984)?

Edited November 9, 2021 by Max

[~bl~]

Was GH the lowest rated soap in its time slot or on ABC and ABC was thinking to replace it as their lowest rated show?

[Max]

I have serious doubts that GH spent many, if any, weeks as ABC's lowest rated soap in the era that immediately preceded Monty. For the 1975-76 Season, GH had a 7.2 rating compared with 7.1 for OLTL, 6.7 for EON, and 5.7 for RH; while ABC probably cut RH some slack due to it being a new soap, the weeks during the 75-76 Season when EON was on CBS were also taken into account when computing that average rating. Over the next two seasons, the ratings gap between GH and EON only got larger: in the 1976-77 Season, GH averaged a 7.0 rating compared to EON's 6.2, while the 1977-78 averages were 7.0 for GH and 5.2 for EON.

GH was certainly underperforming AW during this time, and was likely also underperforming its CBS competition as well. So perhaps ABC was going to cancel GH in spite of it not being at the very bottom of the soap rankings. However, I would think that GH would have been safe so long as EON was still on ABC, though perhaps EON's demos were better than GH's (or perhaps ABC was planning a dual cancellation of both GH and EON).

Edited November 10, 2021 by Max

[Paul Raven]

Yes I think that talk of GH being last was in reference to its timeslot, rather like  Gl being celebrated as #1 wnen in fact it was #1 in its timeslot.

The other factor re cancellation was that ABC owned GH so had full autonomy whereas P&G owned EON so the circumstances were different. ABC probably wanted to hang on to the mighty P&G as an advertiser.

[Paul Raven]

Not soap related but interesting for ratings junkies.

Mon March 17 1975

NBC had been running a game show promotion'Shamrock Sweepstakes' with the winners of various gameshows getting the chance to score $100,000. It culminated that Monday on 'Celebrity Sweepstakes' with the lucky winner announced. 

Celebrity Sweepstakes scored a 10.0 rating/45 share which was the highest rating ever recorded in that timeslot.

 

[Spoon]

 

Edited August 27, 2022 by Spoon
Deleted

[Paul Raven]

Week beginning March 11 1974

1.Match Game 74 CBS 10.7/35

2. Days of Our Lives NBC 10.3/34

3. The Doctors 9.8/34

4. As The World Turns CBS 9.7/33

5. Another World NBC 9.5/31

6. General Hospital ABC 9.5/30

7. All My Children ABC 9.2/33

8. Hollywood Squares NBC 8.8/37

9. Let's Make A Deal 8.4/29

10. Jackpot NBC 8.3/32

     The Price is Right CBS 8.3/37 

Edited August 28, 2022 by Paul Raven

[titan1978]

About GH- I have always been under the impression that it was everything all at once-

Tom Donovan had stabilized ratings when he arrived and also modernized the equipment and spent money on the bts aspect of the show (both Denise Alexander and Leslie Charleson have mentioned this)

Going from 30 to 45 minutes destabilized things again, causing ratings decline and poor storyline direction.

Doug Marland was hired as HW, creating some new characters and refocusing existing storylines.

ABC takes a meeting with Gloria and the legendary the show was going to be cancelled at the end of the next cycle became legend.  It was also going to expand to 1 hour.  According to GH people that were on/at the show at the time there is some truth to this.  She watched the show, gave notes, and finally agreed to take over when they let her have a wide amount of creative control.  She tossed out shows and reshot them with more drama focused direction, more urgency.  

I always took the story to be ABC felt the show was creatively running on empty as well as ratings decline.  It was in rough shape for them as they were also hoping to expand.  I have no doubt that if the Monty revolution had failed, the show would have probably been replaced.  Maybe not at 13 weeks, but possibly within a year to allow development time.

[Paul Raven]

July 9-13 1974

1. Watergate hearings NBC 10.7/37

2. Let's Make A Deal ABC 10.0/34

3. Watergate ABC 9.6/33

4. Split Second ABC 9.5/33

5. Newlywed Game ABC 9.4/32

6. Girl In My Life ABC 9.4/32

7. As The World Turns CBS 9.2/31

8. Watergate CBS 9.1/34

9. All My Children ABC 9.1/34

10. Days of Our Lives NBC 8.6/29

[Paul Raven]

NBC aired a primetime Return to Peyton Place  Sun night Jan 20 1973.

That helped the daytime ratings. In the week prior to the primetime special RTPP had a 7.2 rating for the week.

After the primetime ep the show had an 8.0 rating the following week.

[JoeCool]

Interesting to see ATWT s the 3rd highest soap with the Doctors and Day ahead. All My Children is also very strong early on. I wonder where OLTL is at this time.

WOW! Watergate shook up the soaps. All My Children is the second highest rated soap just 0.1 of a ratings point behind ATWT.

[Contessa Donatella]

Here's a good resource for ratings: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_daytime_soap_opera_ratings

[Contessa Donatella]

I am in the process of writing a new blog on Gloria Monty. I inherited a blog on her that was pretty poorly written. Rewriting blogs that are in poor shape & maybe even badly incorrect is a thing I do. I had gotten almost finished when some thing IRL came up that caused me to have to put it to the side for a time. If not for that I probably would have been finished already. I am turning back to it now & I happened to notice 3 posts here in "Ratings from the 70s" that made me think I should ask some questions here, if that's okay with y'all. A question from bl, a post by Max & a post by titan1978.

 

I have not framed things in terms of GM taking GH from last to first. Although I do note how much time passed under her when GH did reach #1. Instead I have framed things in terms of "She saved the show."(That there was the threat of cancelation & some amount of time available to the show to improve its standing.)

 

For ratings I used https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_daytime_soap_opera_ratings

List of American daytime soap opera ratings

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

I track ratings from 1969 to 1989. I did not look at GH performance to see if it was ABC's lowest ranked soap. I did look at its relative performance between whomever was first, always shown, and whomever was dead last, always shown, with other shows that I cherry-picked, etc., as of interest.

 

I realize that you all have things you're looking at that you are interested in & you may not be interested in this. This will be tedious because it's a lot of ratings. You will have my gratitude if you can tolerate it a bit.

1969-70 1 ATWT 13.6

                5 AW 9.6

                10 GH 8.5

                19 Best Every 1.8

1970-71 1 ATWT 12.4

     4 AW 9.5/32 share

     6 GH 9.5/31 share

     18 Wrld Apt. 3.4

1971-72  1 ATWT 11.1

                 2 GH 10.4

                 6 AW 9.1

                 17 AMC 5.7

1972-73   1 ATWT 11.1

                  3 AW 9.7/33 share

                  4 GH 9.7/31 share

                  17 Y&R 5.0 (Debut)

1973-74    1 ATWT 9.7/33 share

                   2 AW 9.7/31 share

                   5 GH 9.2

                   16 Sec Strm 5.8 (Final Season)

1974-75     1 ATWT 10.8

                    2 AW 9.7

                    8 GH 8.5

                    14 Srvive Marr. 5.7 (Final Season)

1975-76      1 ATWT 9.4

                     2 AW 8.9

                     3 Y&R 8.6

                     10 GH 7.2

                     14 RH 5.7 (Debut)

1976-77       1 ATWT 9.9

                      2 AW 9.0

                      3 GL 8.9

                      4 Y&R 8.7

                      10 GH 7.0

                       15 Lov&Fr 2.9 (Debut)

1977-78        1 ATWT 8.6/31 share

                       2 AW 8.6

                       3  AMC 8.4/31 share)   

                       4 GL 8.0

                       5 Y&R 7.8

                       9 GH 7.0/23 share

                       14 FRFP 3.9 (retooled so 2nd Debut)

1978-79        1 AMC 9.0

                       2 GH 8.7

                       3 Y&R 8.6

                       6 ATWT 8.2

                       8 AW 7.5

                       14 FRFP 2.1 (Final Season)

(1970s rankings 1 ATWT 2 AW 3 DOOL)

1979-80         1 GH 9.9

                        2 AMC 9.2

                        3 Y&R 8.8

                        6 ATWT 7.9

                        8 AW 7.1

                        13 LOL 3.5 (Final Season)

1980-81         1 GH 11.4

                        5 ATWT 7.9

                        6 Y&R 7.8

                        10 AW 5.1

                        12 DOC 3.8

                        12 TX 3.8 (Debut) 

1981-82          1 GH 11.2

                        12 AW 4.7

                         15 DOC 3.3

1982-83          1 GH 9.8

                         10 AW 4.8

                         14 DOC 1.6 (Final Season)

1983-84           1 GH 10.0

                          9 AW 5.6

                          14 SB 3.1 (Debut)

1984-85           1 GH 9.1

                          9 AW 5.5

                          14 EON 2.6 (Final Season)

1985-86            1 GH 9.2

                           8 CAP 5.1

                           8 AW 5.1

                           13 SFT 2.9

1986-87             1 GH 8.3

                            2 Y&R 8.0

                            10 AW 5.1

                            14 SFT 2.5 (Final Season)

1987-88              1 GH 8.7

                             1 Y&R 8.7

                             9 AW 5.1

                             12 RH 2.8

1988-89               1 Y&R 8.1

                              2 GH 7.5

                              9 AW 5.0

                              13 RH (Final Season)

(1980s rankings 1 GH 2 AMC 3 Y&R 4 OLTL)

 

Now, to my questions. Do I need to try to find out what ABC's reason & rationale was for putting GH on the chopping block?  Should I look similarly but also with an eye to where GH was with respect to the other ABC soaps specifically?

I say that the set-up was a threat of cancelation & that GM was given 13 weeks, which is one business cycle, to fix the show & if it is not fixed then it will be canceled. I note that other sources list varying amounts of time without listing them. I say that this is what she is famous for & she might as well be called, one word "GloriaMontySavedGH". I list all of the changes she is said to have made to production out of Schemering. I talk about Marland & headwriting for couples. I talk about L&L, the rape, the desire to create the second supercouple & the rape having to be denied for that to happen & the rebranding as a seduction & the Writers -Marland & PFS - objections to that. I talk about what worked & how within 3 yrs they were at #1. I talk about the erosion of those top ratings & her leaving, then her return, etc. I touch on how this was probably what was needed to get GH over a hump but that in the long run, as with most EPs with mandates for change, the results did not maintain. Oh I tell about dumping a week of shows, straight out of Schemering. Oh, do I need to find out who Tom Donovan is & what he did? Does anyone see anything that I am missing? Thnx foks.