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Ratings from the 80's

Paul Raven

By Paul Raven
in DTS: Cancelled Soaps

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kalbir Grand Master

kalbir

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Even if CBS kept Search for Tomorrow in the 1980s, my feeling is it would've ended the moment Bill Bell had a second show ready for CBS's daytime lineup. Capitol to me was more of a placeholder/time filler until Bill Bell's second show was good to go.

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Paul Raven Grand Master

Paul Raven

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Guiding Light was CBS #1 soap at this time and that was up against GH.

 

I don't recall that being acknowledged much at that time. If only CBS and P&G had found the formula to keep them strong. Maybe Doug Marland could have overseen the GL and ATWT as he seemed to be the only writer that could keep ratings up consistently. He was really the last writer that seemed to have the magic touch.

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soapfan770 Veteran

soapfan770

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The GL-GH rivalry of that era is well documented and remembered, even to a point when an episode of "Roseanne" made reference to it. It was later successes of GL and ATWT in the '90s that went highly ignored by the soap press. I mean ATWT was the 5th most watched soap 1993-1995 and later the 3rd most watched for much of 2002-2003 while GL had success in the late's 90s.   Marland had the touch of versatility later writers lacked. 

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Paul Raven Grand Master

Paul Raven

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It will be interesting to see GL's ratings for later in Marland's run to see if it stayed strong or he was running out of steam.

The show was rocky after he left and the Gail Kobe/Pam Long came along and even got it to#1 for a few weeks in 84.

The trouble with that regime IMO is that they threw out too much of the old structure and focussed on new characters and then further writers did the same until there was a patchwork of families - a couple of Bauers, some Reardons, Lewis and Shaynes. It was all too fragmented...

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Gray Bunny Mentor

Gray Bunny

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That was around '93-94 when Luke & Laura returned to GH.  That's when we learned Dan and Nancy preferred Guiding Light. 

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Yeah, I look forward to seeing those numbers, if/when someone gets hold of them. 

 

@VanessaReardon Thank you for your continued postings! Interesting to see the numbers and rankings go up and down... 

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VanessaReardon Newbie

VanessaReardon

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There is such a misconception regarding GL’s ratings in 1984. GL did NOT hit #1 in the summer of ‘84. Yes, GL beat GH in the ratings for 3 weeks in June of ‘84, (which was a huge accomplishment, even Entertainment Tonight covered the story) but Y&R was the number one rated soap during the three weeks that GL beat GH. 

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VanessaReardon Newbie

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The only thing that I can think of as to why Y&R didn’t get alot of attention is because it wasn’t in the same timeslot as GH, so it was bigger news when the timeslot competitor GL beat GH. I have an audiotape of the ET story where they interview Gail Kobe but I’ve lost track of it. Its somewhere in this house. 

A bonus Holiday edition of Daytime TV, between their December 1981 and January 1982 editions. 

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Gray Bunny Mentor

Gray Bunny

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Interesting new nugget of info regarding GL's 3 weeks at "Number One."  No. 1 in the hot timeslot, okay we can drink to that.

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Side note: Search for Tomorrow's ratings seem so strong in late '81-early '82 for a show dumped by CBS within months afterwards. 

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