Ratings from the 70's

[Manny]

Thank you, Jason!!

Just for my records, do we have full 78 now? I am missing some weeks, but I don't know if those are generally missing or I missed to input them in my spreadsheet

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[Cruising Soaps]

Y&R #1 the week of my bday!   woot woot

[JAS0N47]

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

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Here is a reissue of these charts, with the full preemption data now listed. I have replaced the chart in the thread with this one.

[Contessa Donatella]

AW 11.1 with a 31 share at 207 stations, what a fine time to be Pete Lemay, well, for a little while longer anyway. Although Patrick Mulcahey told me he really did not understand how Pete managed not to kill Paul Rauch. And Pete did say that Paul would just keep on arguing even though you had agreed with him already. But apparently there was only one thing he remained bitter about & it wasn't Paul's doing, it was all P&G. For some reason he & Paul seemed to have a kind of rapprochement.  

[will81]

1979 was a solid year and I was curious about the calendar year ratings since Y&R never managed to hit #1 in the seasonal ratings. I just did the top 5 which covered

Jan 1 - 5 1979 up to Dec 24 - 28 1979 (52 weeks)

1. Y&R 9.4 36% (24 weeks at #1)

2. GH 9.2 31% (18 weeks at #1)

3. AMC 8.9 32% (8 weeks at #1)

4. OLTL 8.3 29%

5. GL 8.1 28% (2 weeks at #1)

Interesting that 4 shows had a crack at the top spot for that year and OLTL never managed #1 but still came in 4th overall for the full year. 

[DM James Fairbanks]

n Sept. 1972, EON moved from it's late afternoon slot (4:30 p.m.) to (2:30 p.m.) so that P&G could group it's soaps together. For the previous seasons, EON was #2 (69-70), #2 (70-71), #4 (71-72) and, then after move #10 (72-73). It was a stupid move since 50% of audience was male + big with after school bunch. Also, there was between 17-19 soaps during that period. (Half-hours) Finally, the ratings were far smaller as the US population was 200 MM in 1970 and 308 MM in 2010. (Although there were significantly more women at home and with far fewer choices, it would be interesting to know how many people were really watching.)

Actually, EON was on at 3:30 from 1962 until 1972, than moved to 2:30.

[EONGLOLTL]

I hope we are able to see the September 1972 ratings.  I will be interested to see the affiliate coverage when there were so many soap!  Fingers crossed!  

[DM James Fairbanks]

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Thank you Jason47! Hopefully I am replying in the correct way. It is interesting that Love of Life had only 185 stations the last week of 1977, but gained seven stations the first week of January 1978. Also, it makes sense that For Richer, For Poorer had the lowest percentage of clearances. One has to wonder if it would have been more successful had the clearances been higher.

Edited August 23, 2023 by DM James Faiba ks
Correct image

[GLATWT88]

If anything YR is proof that a new soap debuting after the 60s could be HIGHLY successful. I do consider RH to be a successful 70s debut as well, but it was stable in the middle of the pack- what I'm saying is YR was able to get to the top. While there were a few soaps that debuted in the 70s and 80s that had moderate success, none really were a top ratings contender. Some may argue that BB, but it never outdid Capitol at its peak and it lagged in the key demo until the 2000s when all the soaps were floundering anyway. 

[DM James Fairbanks]

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I think CBS was more patient.  They knew 12:00 was an iffy timeslot.  Supposedly Bill Bell wanted to cancel after 9 months, but CBS talked him into waiting as the ratings were rising slowly.  As what was said here earlier, Y&R did well where it aired and that lead to it being picked up by more markets.

Ryan's Hope showed promise of being a #4 soap for ABC in 1978, but I believe that is when Claire Labine moved to the "movie" stories.

I think Return to Peyton Place could have been a contender if NBC gave it six more months with the faster pace, but Lin Bolan wanted a slot for How to Survive a Marriage.  P&G probably made a fuss about cancelling Somerset.

Finally, I think For Richer, For Poorer had potential as well, but it seemed to have the lowest number of clearances.  Again, it would have been interesting to see how it would have done with clearances in the 90+ stage.

[GLATWT88]

Definitely. I think clearance and scheduling were the greatest downfall of soaps in the 70s and 80s.

[Chrissy81730]

These ratings are awesome!!! 

[DM James Fairbanks]

@JAS0N47Thank you so much for the work you did digging up these statistics.  It does make things much clearer.  Question, is there anymore information going back to 1970?  Coverage is an extremely important measurement.  In Oct 1976, Daytime TV came out with the Daytime TV's Star Directory.  The most important aspect of this book was the number of affiliates that carried a show.  Considering the data is about six months old (based on the copywrite date and how long it takes to publish), it is interesting that at the time, these are the numbers.

Here is the list, including the changes in 1978:

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So, except for OLTL, DOOL, RH and EON, all shows lost a pretty noteworthy amount of stations (ABC had gains in OLTL, RH and EON, but lost a significant number of stations for AMC (22) and GH (13). 

I am wondering why the CBS shows all lost between 5 and 10 stations (LOL and GL being the biggest losers [though could have GL’s expansion to an hour have done that?]).  None of the other CBS shows moved timeslots.

I remember Days was starting to go all over the place in 1977, as well as the expansion of AMC in the spring of that year, which lead to the fall in ratings.  $20,000 Pyramid was still at 2:00, but damage had been done to both ATWT and DOOL.

Had Family Feud caught on fire yet?  That is what I think lead to LOL losing ground.

I did not realize For Richer, For Poorer was going against AMC.  In New York, I remember it going against EON.

Below is the schedule for Fall 1977 to Summer 1978. 

Your thoughts?

[Contessa Donatella]

OMG, AMC lost 22! Whoa. Sounds like the Wild West. 

[JAS0N47]

1978-1989 is available at the moment. The 1955-1977 data will be coming in more slowly, but over the next few years, that should be available. Just not sure when that will be. Also, not sure how far back the affiliate data goes (if they list that sort of thing in the 50s or 60s) but I believe it may go back to at least 1970, so you will have that info in the coming years.