1 hour ago, JAS0N47 said:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 11/7/77-11/11/77

November 7, 1977 Guiding Light expands to 1 hour.

The new ET schedules starting w/ the soaps were

CBS: 11:30 am Love of Life, noon Y&R, 12:30 pm Search for Tomorrow, 1 pm Local programming, 1:30 pm As the World Turns, 2:30 pm Guiding Light, 3:30 pm All in the Family reruns, 4 pm Tattletales

ABC: 12:30 pm Ryan's Hope, 1 pm All My Children, 2 pm $20,000 Pyramid; 2:30 pm One Life to Live, 3:15 pm General Hospital, 4 pm The Edge of Night

NBC: 1:30 pm Days, 2:30 pm The Doctors, 3 pm Another World, 4 pm The Gong Show

The soap time slot rivalries were now

Search for Tomorrow vs. Ryan's Hope

As the World Turns vs. All My Children vs. Days

Guiding Light vs. One Life to Live/General Hospital vs. The Doctors/Another World

Edited January 6, 20241 yr by kalbir

Interesting to see GH take a ratings jump and move up to #6 in the Nov sweeps before Monty came on board.

Here's what was happening

Katie fretted about Lamonts deteriorating condition while Mark called in specialists. Lesley softened her regard for David, while Laura took a special interest in him. Lana buttered up Jeff for a seduction and confessed she and Lisa played twin tricks on their boyfriends. Monica was further attracted to Alan while working on their helicopter operation study for cardiac patients. Peter and Diana returned home with their adopted son, little Peter'

What was happening on OLTL the week of 11/21-11/25/77 for them to jump to #3?  Was it a heavy Karen week?

2 hours ago, Khan said:

What was happening on OLTL the week of 11/21-11/25/77 for them to jump to #3?  Was it a heavy Karen week?

Jenny canceled the wedding and Brad was incriminated in Lana's death when his ring was found in her apartment. Cathy insisted it wasn't suicide. Karen went bananas over Lana's death. She went on a bar-hopping look for Mr. Goodbar and kept on trucking while blowing Larry's money left and right. Sam shared Brad's confidence about finding Lana's tell-all note to Jenny. Will had the guilts after succumbing to Robin's charms. 

 

Definitely the Will/Robin hookup pushed them to #3...

Edited January 7, 20241 yr by Paul Raven

56 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

Definitely the Will/Robin hookup pushed them to #3...

LOL!!

Before there was Todd and Blair, there was Brad and Jenny.

Glad to see OLTL got a boost from that story, unless it was just luck. I’ve listened to the audio tapes posted of the aftermath of Lana’s death and it was quite good as it played out. 
 

I can’t remember the timeline of recasts though but I think Will, Jenny, Karen and Brad all end up recast around this time which probably did not help them long term. 

1 hour ago, soapfave06 said:

I can’t remember the timeline of recasts though but I think Will, Jenny, Karen and Brad all end up recast around this time which probably did not help them long term. 

All of those recasts were successful. Apart from Will, who was supporting,Jenny,Karen and Brad were frontburner and accepted by viewers.

8 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

All of those recasts were successful. Apart from Will, who was supporting,Jenny,Karen and Brad were frontburner and accepted by viewers.

I agree they were successful l, I just wonder how jarring it may have been at the time for viewers or if they were successful immediately (as I imagine JL as Karen was)

Does anyone have the inside story as to why Kathy Breech was replaced as Karen Wolek?  Thanks to YT, I was able to watch some of her work.  Although she was very pretty, I really don't think she would've been up to playing the prostitution story with as many psychological layers as JL was.  Was that why TPTB replaced her, or was it something else?

I find it interesting that OLTL, and GH with Monica (I can’t recall if there was more recasting in that show at the same time) hit gold with various recasting, new core families and new stories all at once across the board. 

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 12/5/77-12/9/77 & 12/12/77-12/16/77:

FAST WEEKLY WEEK OF 12/19/77-12/23/77 NOT AVAILABLE

(Note: Per newspaper listings, there were no scheduled preemptions and all daytime shows were scheduled to air every day this week).

REST OF 1977-1979 ALREADY POSTED!

Edited June 30, 20241 yr by JAS0N47

January 16, 1978 One Life to Live and General Hospital expand to 1 hr each.

The new ET schedules starting w/ the soaps until the end of the day were

CBS: 11:30 am Love of Life, noon Y&R, 12:30 pm Search for Tomorrow, 1 pm Local programming, 1:30 pm As the World Turns, 2:30 pm Guiding Light, 3:30 pm All in the Family reruns, 4 pm Match Game

ABC: 12:30 pm Ryan's Hope, 1 pm All My Children, 2 pm One Life to Live, 3 pm General Hospital, 4 pm The Edge of Night

NBC: 1 pm For Richer, For Poorer; 1:30 pm Days, 2:30 pm The Doctors, 3 pm Another World, 4 pm Local programming

The soap time slot rivalries were now

Search for Tomorrow vs. Ryan's Hope

All My Children vs. For Richer, For Poorer

As the World Turns vs. All My Children/One Life to Live vs. Days

Guiding Light vs. One Life to Live/General Hospital vs. The Doctors/Another World

General Hospital vs. Another World

1 hour ago, kalbir said:

January 16, 1978 One Life to Live and General Hospital expand to 1 hr each.

The new ET schedules starting w/ the soaps until the end of the day were

CBS: 11:30 am Love of Life, noon Y&R, 12:30 pm Search for Tomorrow, 1 pm Local programming, 1:30 pm As the World Turns, 2:30 pm Guiding Light, 3:30 pm All in the Family reruns, 4 pm Match Game

ABC: 12:30 pm Ryan's Hope, 1 pm All My Children, 2 pm One Life to Live, 3 pm General Hospital, 4 pm The Edge of Night

NBC: 1 pm For Richer, For Poorer; 1:30 pm Days, 2:30 pm The Doctors, 3 pm Another World, 4 pm Local programming

The soap time slot rivalries were now

Search for Tomorrow vs. Ryan's Hope

All My Children vs. For Richer, For Poorer

As the World Turns vs. All My Children/One Life to Live vs. Days

Guiding Light vs. One Life to Live/General Hospital vs. The Doctors/Another World

General Hospital vs. Another World

That schedule was one factor contributing to the slow demise of soaps. Viewers now had some difficult choices to make. Whereas only a few years earlier you could spend 90 mins of your day watching 3 soaps, now it was 3 hours.

If you watched shows on different networks, they now went up against each other, so you either gave up one or watched on alternate days-quite likely giving up on one in the end.

It wasn't helpful to soaps as a genre.

Edited January 7, 20241 yr by Paul Raven

14 minutes ago, Paul Raven said:

That schedule was one factor contributing to the slow demise of soaps. Viewers now had some difficult choices to make. Whereas only a few years earlier you could spend 90 mins of your day watching 3 soaps, now it was 3 hours.

If you watched shows on different networks, they now went up against each other, so you either gave up one or watched on alternate days-quite likely giving up on one in the end.

It wasn't helpful to soaps as a genre.

Yep. That was the day my mother had to decide between ATWT and DAYS. 

 

MAY 1977 SWEEPS WEEK CHARTS: MONDAY-FRIDAY & SATURDAY EARLY MORNING & DAYTIME:

 

NOVEMBER 1977 SWEEPS WEEK CHARTS: MONDAY-FRIDAY & SATURDAY EARLY MORNING & DAYTIME: