Bad Daytime Executives(show killers)

[soapfan770]

After just talking about the problems that NBC Daytime had with John Rohrbeck(drug abuse possibly affected decisions) and Susan Lee(fired due to major PR problem between AW, Beach, and Passions) and after reading about the ABC Daytime President in 1991 personally firing Fiona Hutchinson, what other daytime executives had a negative impact on their respective network line-up? I can name a few I took issue with:

--Lucy Johnson at CBS, for getting rid of both Scott DeFreitas and Craig Lawlor at ATWT because they weren't hunky enough for her among other things.

--Mary Alice Dwyer-Dobbin at P&G. Between her mistreatment of veterans and emphasis to be less like a P&G soap there's a reason her initials are MADD.

--Barbara Bloom at CBS. What color was the sky in her world anyways?

[All My Shadows]

Mack Daddy Frons.

[DRW50]

Angela Shapiro, who let her soaps rot while coming up with a Todd Manning doll.

[DRW50]

Whoever in the world was at NBC Daytime in the late 70s. I don't know who it was, maybe Fred Silverman gets the blame, but what a clusterfuck.

[katie_9918]

I realize that, technically, he wasn't an EP, but Frons far and away did the most damage to daytime drama.

[saynotoursoap]

Yes, it starts at the top with Silverman and trickles down. Linda Line was the VP of Daytime in the late 70s who wreaked havoc with the Peacock soaps. She was responsible for the epic overhaul fail of Days in 1980 that nearly sunk the series.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I'd never even heard of Linda Line. I guess she didn't do anything else in daytime. What was done to AW and DAYS still boggles my mind (not sure if they were to blame for the fall of The Doctors).

[saynotoursoap]

Linda Line replaced Madeline David, who replaced Lin Bolen. Line was not in the job very long. She was fired about six months after Texas debuted, when it became apparent that it was not to be a mega-hit destined for primetime viewing. Actually, Madeline David did little for NBC, too. I believe she was the one who bought The Gong Show and developed that ill-fated news magazine America Alive, which she thought was going to help save NBC's daytime ratings, while she groused about how horrible The Doctors was performing (even though it was the third highest rated NBC program out of ten shows). She developed serializations of Susan Howatch and Phyllis Whitney novels. They were purchased and were going to air in 1978, but she was fired.

[DRW50]

Thanks. I wonder what those soaps would have been. I guess she would have replaced The Doctors with those.

America Alive is a terrible name. I wonder how many "America Dead" headlines the wags got out of it.

Who do you think the best NBC execs were?

[saynotoursoap]

No, The Dark Shore and Spendrift were conceived as serializations that would have lasted thirteen weeks and ended. They were similar to telenovelas with definitive conclusions rather than open-ended.

Whomever was in charge of NBC daytime in the late 60s/early 70s was the best exec. NBC's soaps and game shows ruled in those days.

[DRW50]

It seemed like a number of networks announced those plans but they never happened.

Who ran NBC Daytime for most of the 80s?

[sungrey]

Uh, Carl, you're not going to believe this...

Brian Frons.

For as horrid an executive as he was at ABC, Frons was actually pretty damn good at NBC. He took over in 1983 (after Texas and The Doctors went off the air) and he brought Sale of the Century and Scrabble to decent ratings in the morning. Plus for the remainder of the 1980s, NBC's afternoon lineup was quite strong, with the exception of the 12:30 slot.

[DRW50]

Oh that's right. I should have remembered, as he killed SFT. Thanks.

[sjbeutel]

Brian Frons also played god on Santa Barbara when he was running NBC Daytime. I would say whoever was the person who came after Brian Frons at NBC. He had been in the sports department and was given the NBC Daytime top job. He had plans to cancel both Another World and Days of our Lives in 1993, after Santa Barbara went off the air. If anyone noticed that is when changes to the head writers and producers at both shows. James Riley was brought into Days and Terri Guarnieri was given the EP spot at AW. She had been a producer on The Cosby Show and never worked in daytime before.

[sjbeutel]

I have a question; not sure of anyone can answer it but Brian Frons was at CBS Daytime from 1978-1983. Did he cancel Search for Tomorrow on both CBS and NBC. Search move to NBC in 1982 and Frons joined NBC in 1983. I would find it really funny if he had been responsible for canceling at it two different networks.