May 6-10, 2013: All Soaps Rebound From Terrible Week

[Toups]

Ratings for the week May 6-10, 2013

[WorldTurningDays]

I hope Days went up. The stories have been semi solid and it has earned a boost.

Wish Days would get new sets. The new AMC made me realize how poor Days looks

[jfung79]

Yay, all soaps up for the week and still up year-to-year in total viewers. GH top of the ratings for Women 18-34.

I agree with WorldTurningDays that DAYS has been doing solid -- I would say great -- storytelling, but I think it mostly has been since I started watching in January other than a dip in late March/early April. Cross-canvas, character-driven, and multigenerational, with heart and wit, twists, and great scriptwriting.

[edgeofnik]

Next week, Y&R will be down for sure after the 30 min preemption for a generic WH news conference yesterday.

[Cheap21]

How did GH get the biggest gains when it had the worst week in a long time?

[jfung79]

It actually supports my theory that the week before was a Prospect Park effect from people sampling AMC/OLTL their first week, with those people then coming back home to GH. GH would be most affected since it was a fellow ABC soap.

If it wasn't Prospect Park returnees or random reversion to form for GH (which was due for a rebound in the ratings), I think it was the resolution to the Luke/Laura/Scotty triangle or Maura West.

Also, I disagree that the week was GH's worst in a long time. It was a good week, maintaining the good quality I have come to associate with GH. There was closure for Luke and Laura, with them honoring their connection but realizing they don't fit as a couple anymore and Laura looking to her future with Scott; Maura West was introduced as Ava Jerome to rave reviews; we found out more about Lauren Frank; and the new Morgan was introduced to immediate good effect, with a Thursday cliffhanger I loved as Morgan called Michael and there was a classic old-school soap zoom-in on Michael's reaction. The silly Chew stuff didn't really start until Friday.

[chicklitsandfantasies]

I think this week is the worst week

Yep that conference was right in the middle of the show. I know I changed the channel and missed the ending.

[ChitHappens]

I'm sorry, you lost me

[rhinohide]

LMAO!

[JackPeyton]

I think GH's gains had to do with it's loss last week. Ratings, they go up and down like this.

Then again maybe the PP soaps killing daytime last week is the flip, ppl hated them and went back to daytime and in turn PP reduced its soaps by half du to the huge loss.

[Cheap21]

it is but those ratings haven't been accounted for yet. Big WTF if they rise again next week given the crap onscreenI find Maura West and the gambling story complete with Sonny's search and Luke/Spinelli looking for Lauren to be horrendous. Lulu's amnesia is cringeworthy and of course the relish nonsense is downright abysmal. There wasnt much redeemable about last week. It was all a mess which only got worse this week

[Eric83]

Actually it doesn't. I highly doubt SO many people decided to watch AMC and OLTL during GH. These shows are available it doesn't make any sense especially since PP is saying people are actually binge viewing on the weekend as opposed to watching during the day. It doesn't add up.

[WorldTurningDays]

Without doubt, Days is the most solid soap on air from a writing standpoint. I agree with everything you say. I would think Sony would want to play musical chairs and shift some of the writing crew to YR. JG is dazed and confused while JFP is simply lame as well as too vanilla for such a complex soap.

[jo.frank88]

Glad to see all soaps up. Our soaps are up or equal in year to year (espeically the key demos) and that's what matters - especially as primetime continues to slip and slide...I'm very hopeful that PP soaps will adjust and be successful financially so that someday as the medium continues to transition to the web then Y&R, B&B, DOOL, and GH can continue to successfully transition to the web. As long as we continue to have good quality character driven story with cross canvas cast interaction I think it will always equal success for our soaps!

[jfung79]

There are a lot of explanations for the weekly variations that I think make sense (including randomness), but I don't think it's a lot of people... The change in the ratings is not that big compared to PP apparently needing 500,000 viewers, and to their having had millions of views cumulatively so far.

There was quite a bit of anecdotal evidence that people were saying on here that they weren't watching GH at all, as much, or as fast that first week, or that Twitter feeds were shifting to be about AMC/OLTL instead of GH. But discussion has gone back to being more about GH as PP has faded slightly. Internet fans may be a minority but they aren't so much of a minority that cumulatively they can't affect the ratings at all; if that were the case, PP would have no hope of turning a profit.

Timeshifting to later in the week or the weekend could have affected GH too if people were still watching it on top of AMC and OLTL, but later because they now had more soaps to keep up with. Weekly ratings are only Live+Same Day. Season to date figures are Live+7. PP didn't say everyone was binge viewing on the weekend, just that the majority were.