Here's what I would do, if I couldn't fire / hire any new staff for any of the soaps. On Sabrina's Hospital, I would change the time slot to a half hour five days a week, airing at 4:30pm. I would tell RC / FV to get rid of all the useless recurring characters (this is only if staff couldn't change) and non-major storylines. I would limit contract characters to 25 and recurring to 10. I'd basically make it the cheap soap it is. On DAYS, I would keep it the same, expect taking a month break every summer. This would help get filming get caught up to normal over the years (4 weeks compared to 4 months) I'd also move it to 3pm, so more people can watch it when they are getting home from work. I'll do the CBS soaps later .

I don't think half an hour is the best bet either. B&B is half an hour and that shows tends to make me lose interest because it mostly focuses on the same people. Bringing the show down to half an hour means the cast needs to be cut down as well and that only a select few is going to get any major focus. Same with time changes. If people aren't watching the show during what is typically lunch hours there's no guarantee moving it around the schedule will make a significant increase in viewership. There are plenty of people sitting at home during the daytime hours watching TV but not these network soaps.