Ratings from the 70's

[will81]

@vetsoapfan Though I never saw her material. Any time I hear the name Gabrielle Upton/Gillian Houghton, I shudder, haha. She seemed to be a soap killer. 

She and James Lipton were definitely on the bottom rung of soap scribes.

[vetsoapfan]

Both of those soaps were firing on all cylinders in those years!

The 1960s and particularly the 1970s seduced me into believing that daytime soaps would always provide viewers with high-quality, intelligent, absorbing and adult entertainment.

Little did I know what would happen to the genre in the 1980s and beyond.

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This.

 

Still, to be honest, I would take Upton's work over later soap-killing "writers" who harped on science fiction and low-brow camp. (I can't believe I am saying that, but it's true.)

Lipton...no.

Edited January 9 by vetsoapfan

[Contessa Donatella]

When asked what kind of a soap opera writer James Lipton was, I am quick to reply that he is an amazing host/interviewer of INSIDE THE ACTORS' STUDIO. Then I add that Chapter 8 of his book INSIDE INSIDE is devoted entirely to actors he interviewed who did soaps as well as primetime or movies.

[will81]

Oh yeah for sure. There's no comparison. Even somewhat bland material from the 50's - 70's is more enjoyable to me than some of the things that happened in later decades. 

[vetsoapfan]

Anne Howard Bailey got the axe about halfway through the run of the series.

NBC replaced her and the executive producer, and dropped some actors.

The surge in quality, from AHB's material to Rick Edelstein's, was instantaneous and even exhilarating to me, but NBC had clearly given up on HTSAM. I knew it was a lost cause, once I heard it was being moved to an earlier timeslot, competing directly against ATWT.

In the early 1970s, TIIC at NBC had launched four soaps in the late-afternoon (Somerset, Bright Promise, Return to Peyton Place and HTSAM), all of which were saddled with terrible writing from the start. Each one later fired their original scribes and hired newer and significantly better ones, but even though all four soaps improved significantly and became quite compelling, I think viewers were too burned out to give new NBC soaps much of a chance...yet again.

[Khan]

Thanks, @Reverend Ruthledge and @vetsoapfan, for your perspectives on GL during this early '70's period.

Ironically, as bad as James Lipton was as a HW, I thought he was great as a dialogue writer on THE DOCTORS.  His and Frank Salisbury's scripts were the only things to push me through what I could of the Pollocks' work before I threw in the proverbial towel.

I really wish I could see Edelstein's work on HTSAM.  He and Rita Lakin seemed to be the only writers who wrote well for TD.  All the show's other HW's, including Douglas Marland, just couldn't make the show work like they did.

[vetsoapfan]

I agree about Lakin's and Edelstein's work on The Doctors.

While IMHO, Marland's material on The Doctors did not really jell as well as fans of his later work would have thought, I will admit that his writing for TD was still better than many of that show's other scribes (before and after his tenure).

Interesting, Harding Lemay's work on TD was a snooze-fest as well.

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Edited January 10 by vetsoapfan

[JAS0N47]

They didn't report demos in the August/early September ratings, but for the July 15/July 22 weeks we have this. They only report Teen Female and Total, and 6-11 and Total, so if you do the math, you can figure out what the Teen Males and 2-5 demos are:

 

Soap...Teen Total...Teen Female...Child Total...Age 6-11 (for all these categories: Viewers per 1000 Viewing Households)

AMC...249...187...202...149

AW...170...135...134...86

ATWT...114...83...165...98

DAYS...147...111...177...113

DOC...163...126...161...105

EDGE...105...65...151...97

GH...170...120...220...151

GL...118...86...180...117

HOW...177...145...117...70

LOVE...107...81...249...170

OLTL...158...119...227...127

SEARCH...204...164...155...102

SOMER...119...77...135...96

YR...311...266...241...170

 

And...you had it...YR was tops in 3 of the 4 categories!

 

TOPS:
Teen Total: YR...311

Teen Female...YR...266

Child Total...LOVE...249

Age 6-11...LOVE/YR (tie)...170

[Khan]

Well, I'd argue that just about any other writer's work would look terrific next to the Pollocks' - but I get your point, lol.

That surprised me, too.  I've seen little of Lemay's work on TD, but what I have seen...just kind of lays there.  I think that was due partly to the usual network/sponsor interference and weak leadership, but if I'm being honest, I also don't think many of the actors on the show were really that good.

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 9/16/74-9/20/74 & 9/23/74-9/27/74:

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[will81]

Thank you for going to the effort of typing that up, great to have confirmation.

No wonder Y&R and AMC had such a boost over the summer. The kids were home to take over the tv sets, haha. 

[JoeCool]

Yes AMC had a boost but did not drop as significantly as Restless did in September.

[kalbir]

Would you say that the 1970s was the peak of daytime soaps as a genre? I take it you weren't a fan of the 1980s trends.

[will81]

Yep it definitely held on. I wonder if more parents/grand parents got hooked when the kids turned the dial to AMC. I know I got both my grandmothers hooked on soaps, haha

Although Y&R had a reputation as the youthful soap, I feel AMC was like that too. Though maybe there was more there for older viewers to attach to and that wasn't as much the case with Y&R. CBS overall was a lot more conservative. 

[vetsoapfan]

Well, that's is what I meant, yes. A vintage soap magazine once posted something like, his work on The Doctors was not Marland at his best, but it was better than the garbage he inherited. Even watching the show live at the time, I think I overvalued Marland's contribution to TD, mainly because it was not as god-awful as what had come before him.

I always wonder how much of the weak material we see from otherwise-gifted writers is the result of network and sponsor tampering and interference. Pat Falken Smith should not have been as bad on Ryan's Hope as she was. Claire Labine's material on TGL was mysteriously subpar. Ditto Lemay's on The Doctors. Many esteemed scribes have openly spoken about the interference from TPTB which hindered their work at one time or another.

Poor production values and a largely-mediocre cast only make the situation worse.

We were offered a lot of great drama in the 1950s and '60s, but yes: I do think the soaps reached their creative peak in the 1970s.

The science-fiction dreck, the dismissal of the vets, the low-brow camp, the characters being reduced to caricatures, and the shallow focus on glam, glitz, temper tantrums and adolescent antic severely crippled the genre in the 1980s. It has never recovered, IMHO.

In the golden days of the 1970s, I didn't appreciate how blessed we, the  viewers, were.

Edited January 10 by vetsoapfan