Ratings from the 70's

[danfling]

 

Concerning Ms. Gloria Monty and Love of Life, I had gotten information from a website Academy of Holy Angels (https://wwwlholyangels.org/gloria-monty) which had stated that she had worked as a director on Love of Life.

 

 

"Gloria Monty '38

Gloria Monty O’Byrne ’38 was inducted posthumously into the AHA Fine & Performing Arts Hall of Fame in 2010. Gloria used her experiences under the dome in Fort Lee as a springboard to her future successes. She was involved in the drama club, the Gay Pretenders, all four years and was named president in her senior year. Gloria also sang with the Glee Club. A classmate remarked in the 1937 edition of Echoes, “How many classes have been brightened by the spontaneous wit of Gloria Montemuro.” Gloria was just 16 when she graduated from Holy Angels. She went on to pursue a degree at the University of Iowa. She received a Master’s degree in drama from Columbia University. In 1952, Gloria married Robert O’Byrne and the two opened their own acting company in New York City.

Gloria worked as a producer/director of Broadway, Off-Broadway and Summer Stock productions. In 1950, she was hired as an Associate Director for the CBS soap The First Hundred Years. A year later, she became the first woman to ever be hired as a Director tv daytime drama for Love of Life. In 1954, she became Director of CBS’ Secret Storm where she remained for ten years. "

 

 

 

 

[Contessa Donatella]

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

[danfling]

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

[Contessa Donatella]

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.

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

[danfling]

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.

[TVFAN1144]

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

[kalbir]

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.

[Contessa Donatella]

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.

[danfling]

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.

[Contessa Donatella]

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.

[Paul Raven]

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.

[Paul Raven]

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.

[Paul Raven]

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

[Paul Raven]

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.

[JAS0N47]

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:

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Edited August 23, 2023 by JAS0N47