May 20-24, 2013: Great Week For All Soaps

[aMLCproduction]

So happy for my show DAYS. I always said never underestimate Days of Our Lives.

RC and FV ur show is not foing so well.

[SouthOfSoap]

Thanks, not sure why I didn't think of that!

[JONNYSBRO]

When Ron/Frank focus on core GH fan faves the ratings go up but this self indulegent bringing the OLTL gang on keeps sinking ratings. It didn';t translat when they first arrived and its not translating now. They need to stop doing that the audience wants GH core faves onscreen. Y&R under JFP is doing solid numbers its up from MAB's regime, so take that Maria. The biggest thing is how good DAYS has been its really very Broderick writing. As all this character driven material seems like her stuff. DAYS needs a deep writer who can write it ats core.

[jfung79]

Surprised DAYS eked out ahead of GH in total viewers and at their beating GH in the Women 18-49 demo. Happy for DAYS and not worried about GH -- this is still a year on year and week to week gain for GH. GH is not in trouble, up in total viewers and stable in demos. Airtime is a balancing act and I trust TPTB.

[OldGHFan]

Great post. The OLTL actors are on their 2nd, 3rd and 4th roles on GH in less than 2 years while GH actresses like Finola Hughes and Genie Francis have barely been on this show recently. We want to see GH favorites, not the OLTL pets!

[Eric83]

The show is a mess.

But to each his own.

[marceline]

Interesting to see DAYS daily numbers increase throughout the week when the general norm is for numbers to drop as the week goes on.

[ChitHappens]

At least the 2nd straight week that GH has lost more than 500k viewers in 5 days! That's a problem!

[beebs]

That tells me that there's a strength in the stories on the air. The other shows need to take note, if your show's doing what it's supposed to do, Friday should be one of the stronger days of the week. I hope this stability and growth continues for DAYS. In its writing and its numbers. They certainly deserve it more than GH.

[jfung79]

Yes, DAYS going up through the week was a testament to how good the stories and the acting were. Going up from Monday to Friday definitely goes against what is normal in Live+Same Day ratings. Glad the ratings have rewarded the quality.

If you haven't checked out DAYS yet since its rebirth (coincidentally around when I started watching in January), I highly recommend it!

But I disagree with beebs ... With Live+Same Day ratings, it is normal for viewership to fall due to taping and viewing later increasing as the week goes on. So while a *large* viewership drop from Monday-Friday may be a problem, typically soaps do not need to be gaining or even avoiding losing, viewers from Monday to Friday to mean they are doing what they should be doing.

[rhinohide]

Since all the soaps were struggling mightily this time last year and GH and Days were widely believed to be in danger of cancellation, it's really not that big of a surprise (or an accomplishment) to see them beating their last year numbers. As we all should know by now, GH wasn't saved due to Ron's brilliant writing because the decision was based on the Revolution's (and Later GAA's) poor performance. It's like if you and a buddy are out in the woods and are chased by a bear, you don't need to worry about outrunning the bear -- you just have to be faster than your buddy. So out of curiosity, I went back to see how they performed vs. two years ago. Of the four remaining soaps, only Y&R is not surpassing its performance from 2011 based on Total Viewers. And Y&R and GH are not meeting their numbers in the 18-49 demographic.

Household Viewers 2013 vs. 2011

Y&R 4,522,000/4,647,000 ( -125,000)

B&B 3,414,000/2,829,000 (+585,000)

Days 2,513,000/2,341,000 (+172,000)

GH 2,505,000/2,448,000 (+57,000)

18-49 2013 vs. 2011

Y&R 922,000/965,000 (-43,000)

B&B 736,000/537,000 (+199,000)

Days 634,000/630,000 (+4,000)

GH 604,000/673,000 (-69,000)

[Juliajms]

It's surprising to me. I expected nothing, but a steady downward march for these shows until the end. Not that I think ratings will matter that much when the networks decide they want out of soaps once and for all anyway. As we all know OLTL was recovering a bit when the end came.

[rhinohide]

I've always wondered if a portion of OLTL and AMC viewers moved to other shows and boosted their viewership, at least for a time. Obviously that didn't happen at GH (or if OLTL viewers came, they ran off former GH loyalists). It's funny that the remaining four soaps are all performing better. Maybe it's because they all benefitted from the cancellations.

That said, if they'd continued to decline from last years numbers -- they would all be cancelled by now.

[BadAddiction]

Wow, these numbers really put those Press Releases into perspective.

[GregNYC]

B&B has done really well considering its lead in Y&R, dropped.