January 9-13, 2012

[TeamEric]

Excellent point. Despite how good OLTL performed, it didn't manage to edge out B&B for 2nd spot the way AMC did last September. B&B is now up year over year and has had a real resurgence.

As for the affiliates being unhappy over the Revolutions' poor performance, I would bet the affiliates get back the full afternoon time slots within the next 2 years. It's all going to syndication modeling.

[TeamEric]

Hi Errol,

Last time an ABC soap earned 1 million+ viewers in 18-49 demos, it was GH for 2/1-5/2010 (1,065,000) for Sonny shooting Dante which was promoted everywhere. I am curious if OLTL beat that GH Friday demo?

[JNewt]

Some of that sounds a little off, CBS aint making that much money off of two cheap programs that don't even rate well at all. GL and ATWT weren't that expensive to make that big of a difference plus they paid a lisence fee to air those two soaps, they weren't paying for production costs like ABC was doing. I can believe CBS Corp. maybe tunring a profit like that as a parent company since they were struggling in 2008 but CBS Daytime itself that's a damn lie right there or spin.

I'm supposed to believe that The Talk and Let's Make a Deal made $75 million year-to-year alone? Come on gimme a break. LOL!

[JNewt]

I agree as B&B's ratings have amazed more than any other soap since the summertime as their ratings have increased. They were headed towards cancellation territory not that long ago maybe about a year ago. This is a huge resurgence for them and Y&R was down most of the time when it was ascending like that. Now that Y&R has picked up some AMC fans this will benefit B&B even more this year and lock up another renewal next year.

The affiliates still aren't too happy with The Chew's performances although it hasn't done too badly there so they've got to be having a heart-attack over The Revolution's poor performances this week especially in a premiere week. I really believe now that the affiliates will take two hours away from ABC in a couple of years and go with a syndication model like the rest of the networks.

[JackPeyton]

Days was hurt by OLTL (and well, it sucks) and GH was helped by it.

Next weeks ratings will be interestin.

[HeedTheMessenger2.0]

Yay OLTL!

Honestly though it didn't really help GH at all, considering GH bled over ONE MILLION viewers of Friday... not much spill over there. In primetime usually that big of a lead in drop would get a show canceled.

I feel like ABC didn't real.ly promote the end of OLTL- I remember seeing a lot For Amc but hardly anything for oltl...

[GregNYC]

Les Moonface, aka Mr. Julie Chen, claimed this. Who knows if he is exaggerating or not.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111904194604576578632829644962.html

The strategy has had some success: at an investor conference last week, Mr. Moonves said five to seven years ago, CBS's daytime line-up was losing about $25 million annually. This year, he said, the five shows that comprise CBS's daytime schedule will make CBS more than $100 million.

[Max]

I agree that GL's cancellation was a mercy killing. However, AMC was also a dying dog, even if relatively few people here are willing to admit it.

Although I am not surprised at OLTL's performance, I really felt it deserved better ratings than it got.

[Kryptonite]

Next week will definitely be interesting as DAYS has a chance to go up now that in some of those markets where they aired against OLTL they can go against The Revolution's soft ratings.

[DRW50]

I thought the finale week of OLTL was all over the place, to put it kindly, and lacked a strong emotional punch, so I think those ratings are fair. I was watching with someone who usually gets emotional at most soap finales and they just kind of looked annoyed and disappointed with OLTL's as it went along.

I don't think AMC or OLTL were dying dogs. They both just lost so much focus and any identity, thanks to Frons and various incompetent personnel.

[gtru1981]

Maybe but I highly doubt it.

[GregNYC]

Actually, it isn't that far fetched. $125 million divided by 52 weeks a year = $2.5 million a week. This divided by 5 days a week = $500,000 a day. This divided by 2 shows = $250,000 savings for a show a day.

So, replacing GL/ATWT with cheap network owned shows saves CBS $250,000 for a each show in a day.

[Eric83]

There is no way GL/ATWT cost that much at the end.

[DRW50]

GL underwent huge cuts.

Not to mention that The Talk probably costs a lot more than the average talk show, with the amount of firing and hiring they had to do for its first year.

[Cheap21]

Oh please AMC was nowwhere near the level that GL was. GL was dead before cancellation even came with no hope of recovering. AMC still had alot of potential and went out strong