Daytime TV had an article in 75 dealing with the fact that back in 71, for the first time since 1960 (according to them), ATWT was beaten in the weekly ratings. They published the ratings for that momentous week of Nov 12th and followed up with the same weeks rating for the next 4 years.

Thought posters might be interested.I wonder what show (s) beat ATWT in 1960? Does anyone know what was happening on DOOl and GH the weeks that they hit #1?

1971

1. DOOL 10.0

2.ATWT 9.8

3.TD 9.6

4. GH 9.5

5.AW 9.4

6.SFT 7.9

7.LOL 7.6

8.LIAMST 7.6

9.SS 7.1

10.OLTL 6.7

Interesting to see the dominance of NBC with 3 of the top 5 shows yet Bright Promise and Somerset failing to follow through, and GH doing so well as the lone hit ABC show.

It must have been hard for CBS to have ATWT dethroned and no other soap in the top 5.Also,shows traditionally perceived as weaker (LOL,SS etc outdoing GL and EON)

I'll post the next ratings later.

Edited July 24, 201114 yr by Paul Raven

1 hour ago, danfling said:

A year later, she became the first woman to ever be hired as a Director tv daytime drama for Love of Life.

As you know by now that is a credit that shows up no place else for her!

No, I was assuming that she was the first female director.    Was there a female director prior to Ms. Monty?

I have no idea about Love of Life. I only know that everywhere else Gloria Monty is listed as the director of 3 soaps ONLY : THE FIRST HUNDRED YEARS, a failure, THE SECRET STORM, for 15 years, and BRIGHT PROMISE, another failure. She is listed as the director of unnamed TV movies. Then she is listed as the Executive Producer of GENERAL HOSPITAL.

1 hour ago, danfling said:

No, I was assuming that she was the first female director.    Was there a female director prior to Ms. Monty?

Looking now at Schemering, at LOVE OF LIFE, there is only one director named that is a feminine name: Heather H. Hill.

Yes, the credits of Love of Life (and many other soap operas on lists from the 1980s - such as The Secret Storm and Somerset) lack many names.   I have been thinking that she worked on Love of Life since I read that biography of her from which I earlier posted.

Expanding The Doctors to an hour would probably have been more successful than all the scenarios involving Another World 90 minute experiment.   It did fairly well in ratings.   Maybe the writing team and CP held off expansion like Bill Bell and Agnes Nixon did for quality reasons.  I do believe the expansions took away focus on most shows 

 

Another World would probably have suffered decline no matter what at 3 with the Gloria Monty General Hospital “miracle”.  The. 90 minute debacle helped to decline even more.   The Doctors was the biggest victim after Another World going back to 60 minutes and Texas premier moving TD to 12:30 then 12.  (I liked Texas.  My roommates and I watched at 11 in college 

 

I don’t think NBC ever regained success in the 3 to 4 slot after this …Texas.Chips reruns, Fantasy,Match Game/Hollywood Squares hour, Santa Barbara.  I think the network gave affiliates the option of airing Sunset Beach at 12 or 3

On 10/10/2022 at 11:48 AM, JoeCool said:

GH did not have the competition of AMC vs. Y & R.

Y&R and All My Children were head-to-head at 1 pm ET from February 4, 1980 to June 5, 1981.

Y&R moved to its current time 12:30 pm ET on June 8, 1981 so the second half of Y&R was head-to-head w/ the first half of All My Children.

All My Children was 2nd from 1979/80 until 1984/85. Y&R moved past All My Children for 2nd in 1985/86, and the rest is history.

2 hours ago, TVFAN1144 said:

I think the network gave affiliates the option of airing Sunset Beach at 12 or 3

By that time NBC's affiliates had come to be called "renegades" because they often did whatever they pleased. NBC's method of dealing with this was to try to be nice to them. For example, they let the affiliates decide which soap to do, out of 4, and they chose BEACH! So, giving them an option 12 or 3 would've worked right in there.

The late Gloria Monty was also the executive producer of the primetime serial The Hamptons.   She used performers from The Secret Storm (Jada Rowland) on that show.

Saturday, October 8, 2022

9:21 AM

I'm looking now to see if I can find anything in the ratings that would explain why the network, NBC, did not pursue expansion to 1 hr for THE DOCTORS when they did so for AW first & then DOOL second. They did 1 hour standalone special episodes for all three. I took the ratings from here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_American_daytime_soap_opera_ratings

 

Relative placement of ratings for the 3 NBC soaps - AW, DOOL & DOC.

 

1969-1970 5 AW 9.6 7 DOOL 8.8 8 DOC 8.6.

1970-1971 4 AW 9.5/32 share 4 DOOL 9.5/32 share 7 DOC 9.4.

1971-1972 3 DOOL 9.9 5 DOC 9.3 6 AW 9.1

1972-1973 2 DOOL 9.9 3 AW 9.7/33 share 5 DOC 9.9

1973-1974 2 AW 9.7 /32 share 2 DOOL 9.7 /32 share 4 DOC 9.5

1974-1975 2 AW 9.7 tie/2 DOOL 9.7 6 DOC 9.0

1975-1976 2 AW 8.9 4 DOOL 8.3 8 DOC 7.3

1976-1977 2 AW 9.0 7 DOOL 7.8 11 DOC 6.9

1977-1978 2 AW 8.6/28 share 10 DOOL 6.9 11 DOC 6.5

1978-1979 8 AW 7.5 10 DOOL 6.8 11 DOC 6.3.

Yield is AW 3-2s 2-3s 1-4 1-5 2-6s and 1 - 8 

Yield is DOOL 2-2s, 1-3, 2-4s, 1-6, 2-7s and 2-11s

Yield is DOC 1-4, 2-5s, 1-7, 2-8s, 3-11s

I think that I can see from that, that they would have been either very vigilant & done extra testing (which there's some thinking that they did do) or been very reluctant to proceed. NBC was not known for having an even hand & treating all of their soaps similarly & I think The Doctors paid a price this time. Later AW did. Anyway, I've found it of interest & it definitely furthers my love/hate relationship with what is for me Home.

With so many pages and ratings posted i'm not sure these have been presented before, but here goes:

Week ending Sept 29 1974

#1 ATWT 11.4

#2 Match Game 10.8

#3 AMC 9.4

#4 DOOL 9.2

#5 DRS 9.1

Week ending Feb 19th 1975

ATWT #2 11.2

AW #4 10.2

DOOL # 5 10.1

game shows filled the other top 5 slots.

ABC hit #1 in daytime for the first time ever in the 2 weeks ending Aug 20 1971.

10am to 4.30 pm

ABC 8.1

CBS 7.9

NBC 6.5

For the nine timeslots all 3 networks programmed

ABC 8.3

CBS 7.5

NBC 7.0

General Hospital was ABC's highest rating show 9.8 but the overall rise was attributed to the addition of Love American Style -  replacing A World Apart,  and Password - replacing Dark Shadows.

In addition to GH ,LAS, Newlywed Game and Bewitched won their timeslots and Let's Make A Deal was a close 2nd to ATWT. ABC had 5 of the Top 7 shows.

Another factor for the rise was the increased number of school age children watching during Summer who preferred sitcoms and game shows to soaps. The feeling was ABC would not sustain those numbers once school resumed.

In anticipation ABC was planning to swap LAS and Password. 

CBS was not happy to see ATWT threatened and brought back Irna Phillips as headwriter.

Another win for ABC week ending Jan 9 1972

ABC 8.7/29

NBC 8.0

CBS 7.7

#1 GH

#2 ATWT

#3 Newlywed Game

#4 Hollywood Squares

For the next 2 weeks in Jan 72 Hollywood Squares was #1- the first time it held that position. In the second week it tied with GH for #1.

One reason may have been that it had more exposure to viewers because a syndicated nightime version had started that season.

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 12/26/77-12/30/77 & 1/2/78-1/6/78:

 

 

In addition to historic Nielsen ratings data, these weekly charts will help fans of other soaps confirm which dates had preemptions! The stations column is the number of network affiliates which aired the soap that week. The percentage column is the percentage of network affiliates which aired the soap that week.

 

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 1/9/78-1/13/78 & 1/16/78-1/20/78:

 

Edited August 23, 20232 yr by JAS0N47

Thanks for posting. Hope you have more.

That was really the end of an era

Early 78  AW at #1 ATWT at #2. Within months AW had tumbled and GH taken over dominance of the 3pm slot.

Surprising that ATWT began to drop as nothing really changed in terms of storytelling or characters. It just seemed like viewers suddenly found ATWT not to their liking and switched off.

Look at The Doctors ahead of Days.