Cancellation Predictions You Got Right and Those You Got Wrong

[EricMontreal22]

I have to admit I did think The City would get more than 18 months. During it's last 4 months it was the ONLY soap on ABC whose ratings were climbing (very very very slowly but the other soaps started to drop in 1997)--and ABC seemed committed to this new soap style. Also the final 6 months it really finally found its footing. But it was apparently very costly, and it's true that its ratings never really improved on Loving.

[beebs]

It always baffles me that ABC would give 18 months to a show and expect immediate big ratings in a timeslot they hadn't even been competitive in since the early 80s, up against the #1 soap in most markets, and in an environment where the only soap that had debuted in the previous few years that had had ANY ratings success whatsoever was B&B who, for all intents and purposes, is an anomaly of good timeslotting and a network with a twitchy finger on the cancellation button. It takes time to build an audience, and CITY was doing it. Maybe with a budget cut it may have worked, I just don't know why they were so hasty to replace it, much as PC's initial ratings blew CITY's out of the water.

[juppiter]

Do we wanna try doing the last four?

GH: January 2013

DAYS: September 2013

B&B: September 2014

Y&R: September 2014

[Max]

Believe it or not, after NBC cancelled Passions in 2007, Jeff Zucker actually said that DOOL would almost certainly be gone the following year. Because of incidents like this one, I still believe that DOOL will have quite a bit of time left on NBC.

I am really uncertain as to when CBS will cancel B&B (although 2013 or 2014 is very possible). Regardless, B&B--because it is such an international smash--will find success on the internet and live on for many years after its time on CBS. (Previously, if a soap did well overseas, such success could not prevent its demise. However, the internet changes all that.)

I'm thinking that GH will leave ABC shortly after its 50th anniversary in April 2013. (I have a feeling that either Chew or Revolution will be pulled in September 2012, and GH will occupy one of those shows' former time slots for another year.) I know that the conventional wisdom states that GH is a goner in September 2012. And while the conventional wisdom was correct when it predicted that ATWT would only last another year after GL, it was wrong when it stated that DOOL would last just another year after Passions.

DOOL will be renewed until at least September 2014. (Its current contract allows a one-year extension through that date.) Because of that soap's incredible past good fortune, I actually believe it won't leave NBC until after its 50th anniversary in November 2015. Despite DOOL's terrible ratings, it is important to keep in mind that NBC (for the past thirty years) has a lower threshold of what is an "acceptable" daytime rating when compared to ABC or CBS. Furthermore, DOOL benefits because (I believe) NBC really does not know what to replace it with: they no longer have a head of daytime (whose job it is to seek new types of programming), and extending the Today Show to five hours is just not feasible. (And NBC most definately does not want to give back this hour of programming to its affiliates, either.)

Y&R will be on CBS for a very long time to come (well past 2014, and probably past 2020). I know that this is going to upset a lot of people here at SON--because so many of them hate what Y&R has become under MAB--but there is just no way (barring a major ratings meltdown, whereby the soap loses half its viewers in the next two years) CBS is going to cancel the show that is tied for first place (with TPIR) among all programs on network daytime television. So long as Y&R remains the #1 program on network daytime television, it is completely safe. (And this is the same reason why MAB has yet to be fired, although her job is not completely safe.)