May 14-18, 2012

[Toups]

Ratings for the week May 14-18, 2012

[dowwwe]

I hope for good things for DAYS when the writing is good. Unfortunately, it hasn't been. Every single aspect of the show is boring right now... and did they ever chew through that safe house storyline quickly.

I'm predicting no change in households for DAYS and a slight drop in total viewers.

[starwatcher21]

I hope GH goes up! Days is horrible. I'm beginning to think they fired people to get buzz for the show.

[John]

Those ratings suck. Shows need to think outside the box. Stop playin safe.

[gtru1981]

What these shows need to do is stop using the same stories and tales. Let go of the 70's and 80's, we live in a new era, try to keep up with the times or they will all be gone in 2-3 years.

People are sick of who's your daddy, back from the dead, long lost child, etc.

[DRW50]

Our saviors Cartini tank the ratings yet again.

[marceline]

It's too late for these shows. Nothing short of a serious commitment at the management level will save any of them and even that would be iffy. People who used to watch soaps moved on (in some cases, to the hereafter) and nothing will bring them back. I'll always wonder how a new soap might've performed.

[DaytimeFan]

You're absolutely right. These shows are DONE, there's no coming back.

[OldGHFan]

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out people are sick and tired of Sonny, Carly, Jason and Sam. How many years have people been saying this? At least a decade. And yet TPTB expect a different result with the main focus on the same dam# people.

[Graham]

0.8 is the new norm for DAYS it seems. Amazing.

[Eric83]

[JaneAusten]

D

[Cyberologist]

Thank you yes I agree the attrition of soaps are due to several factors including a serious loss of their African American viewers but these shows have never tried to "reinvent" the genre for today's audience IMO a lot has to do with that to get "new viewers"

Writing is largely to blame they steadfastly refuse to step outside the lines these shows could have been revived in some way but they kept the same stale personnel who rotated from show to show nothing new nothing fresh! Soaps needed to at least try a fresh approach they never would same ole' Who's the daddy, triangle after triangle misogony....same stale leads that hijack the show & hold viewers hostage

Now we have Cartini are they doing anything different really?

No. Its the Sonny / Jason /Carly/Sam show who has tanked the show for years but now the OLTL characters & vets like Heather Webber will make them more interesting but they are still eating the show alive.

[Skin]

I don't know if I necessarily agree about soaps being "stuck in the past" as a reason for what killed them. I think more or less it simply comes down to the networks went in another direction which killed them. It's the idea that the networks in general just wanted cheaper productions and material that better sourced their affiliates with talk/reality/sitcom tie ins. All of the above is probably less costly then a soap is. Soaps in general probably don't do much for local programming and Daytime is never going to bring in as much viewership or dollar amounts as Primetime. I actually think there were soap writers who did try to bring soaps into the now and we saw that with Cartini, Pratt, Highley, McTavish and Sheffer, all of them tried to be edgy in their own way and think outside of the box and all were criticized for their attempts to bring contemporary primetime to daytime.

[~bl~]

While I think GH is stuck in a rut due to featuring the same characters over many years, but I don't think that is what destroyed the genre. They alienated their core with the over reliance on certain characters. Now if they switched gears, who would be left watching, how would they get the older viewers back (which they don't watch because they are older...) They would have to find new viewers and that seems improbable.

Back in the day, soaps brought in more money compared to how much they cost and helped keep the networks out of the red. The networks could try and fail with prime time series, as they were getting that much money from their daytime shows. I feel this is what destroyed everything as the margin stopped being good enough. So the shows got desperate and did insane things and it snowball even further.