Ratings from the 80's

[Manny]

Thank you all for providing all the rating!! Especially @VanessaReardon!! Wow! It was so great to see all the weekly ones!! In the last couple of days I went through the entire 60s, 70s and 80s threads!!

[Paul Raven]

Week ending Oct 24 1980

1. GH 37%

2. AMC 34%

3. OLTL 33%

4. Y&R 30%

5. ATWT 28%

6. GL 27%

7. RH 27%

8. SFT 24%

9. DOOL 20%

10. EON 18%

11. AW 16%

12. TX 15%

13. TD 15%

[Soapsuds]

Thanks for posting these. Still looking for 88 and 89 ratings. The actual numbers not just the position.

[Paul Raven]

Soap Sensationn.

ABC Research is anticipating record numbers from last week's two-part wedding (Nov. 16 and 17) of Luke (Tony Geary) and Laura (Genie Francis) on its already top-rated General Hospital. "Conservative" estimate is 19.5 million viewers watching all or part each day, or 16.0 rating/49 share. General Hospital usually averages about 15.1 million viewers or 12.0 rating/40 share. National ratings weren't available last week, but overnights were strong for both days, according to ABC. New York brought 15.4/46 and 15.8/46; Chicago 21.7/62 and 20.6/61. and Los Angeles 13.6/48 and 12.7/46. Among the "guests" at wedding was Elizabeth Taylor, who began a short soap stint-her first-a week earlier. The wedding proved to be a local promotion bonanza. In Indianapolis, for example, WRTV(TV) with WIBC(AM) held a reception for more than 1,000 people at Stouffers Inn to watch the wedding and share cake. Guests were picked from postcard entries.

[te.]

The days when soaps could average 15 million viewers...

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[Chrissy81730]

The ratings for GH were insane. No other soap has come close to that popularity. Y&R never reached those ratings heights. And they never will, despite being #1 for decades now. I’m sure ABC still has funds from the heyday of Gloria Monty’s reign as General Hospital’s: Executive Producer. History was made for sure. 

Edited June 19, 2021 by Chrissy81730

[Paul Raven]

Feb sweeps daytime ratings 10am-4pm 84 v 83

1984

CBS 7.6

ABC 7.1

NBC 5.3

 

1983

CBS 6.9

ABC 7.5

NBC 4.6

 

NBC must have been cheered about their improvement and hoping Santa Barbara would further help.

ABC's decline may have been attributed to Loving and the various 11am shows failing to make an impact.

[Pine Charles]

All My Children also lost many of its’ most popular stars around this time period (1984) - Kim Delaney, Dorothy Lyman, Taylor Miller and Marcy Walker.

[Paul Raven]

July 85

ABC has been picking up strength in daytime ratings. Out of past seven weeks, ABC has placed first in daytime five weeks, tied one week and lost one week. Since week of Jan. 20, 1984, up until seven weeks ago, ABC has been second to CBS in daytime household ratings every week.

 

For week ended July 12, ABC averaged 6.4 rating and 22 share, compared to 6.1/22 for CBS and 5.0/18 for NBC.

During second quarter of this year, ABC Averaged 2/10 of rating point behind CBS, compared to gap of 9/10 of rating point in daytime ratings for comparable period year ago. (However, daytime averages for second quarter 1985 exclude 4 -4:30 p.m. period where ABC dropped Edge of Night last year and where affiliates must now run local programing.)

 

Lewis H. Erlicht, president, ABC Entertainment, said newfound strength is attributable in part to gains made in 11 a.m. -noon (NYT) block where ABC dropped Family Feud on June 17 and replaced it with All -Star Blitz, which it shifted from 11 a.m. to 11:30 a.m. Then ABC filled 11 -11:30 a.m. slot with Angie, prime time series on ABC in late '70's.

But Erlicht said real momentum behind improved daytime numbers is coming from 1 -4 p.m. block of serial dramas led by General Hospital, All My Children and One Life To Live.

"Last summer we weren't strong enough in our [daytime serial] storylines and characters," Erlicht acknowledged, "but we've started to get hot stories and characters and we're going to once again be dominant" he predicted.

Erlicht said that 11:30 -noon period would be filled with "comedy" sometime this fall, but declined to identify show. But Hollywood sources speculated likely candidate will be all new episodes of Love American Style, "daycom" that Paramount Television has received 13 -week order from ABC for delivery in latter part of second quarter.

[Chris 2]

Those cheap-looking, made-for-daytime episodes of Love, American Style didn’t qualify as “comedy.”

 

And it’s funny that they improved their 11:00 numbers with Angie, a short-lived series that ABC completely mishandled years earlier.

[Soapsuds]

IT would be nice if we got more 80s ratings.

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We still need all of 1988 and 1989 up to July.

[beebs]

Right? Too bad about JFPVanessaReardon's hissy fit over being given a warning  or we could've had them by now. Oh well.

[Max]

 

This may be heresy, but I think that NBC should never have launched Santa Barbara in the Summer of 1984. I can see why NBC wanted to air a unique soap, but such a launch should have waited until the network's daytime division was more on par (in terms of Nielsen ratings strength) with that of CBS and ABC. Both DOOL and AW experienced very encouraging ratings growth during the 1983-84 Season, but the latter soap still had so much more ground to make up due to the disastrous 90-minute experiment and decision to spinoff the Iris character to Texas. Once DOOL showed that it could place in the Top 5 (in the weekly ratings), the same level of focus and attention should have been given to AW. Sadly that never happened, as 1983 & 84 proved to be the most promising years (ratings wise) for AW post-Lemay. For NBC to have shifted its focus from AW's continued recovery to the big promotional efforts associated with launching SB was a huge mistake, IMO.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Max

[Max]

 

In terms of pop culture impact--and probably in turns of profits generated, as well--I suspect that you are correct. But the highest rated soaps from the 1950s through the beginning of the 70s had higher seasonal Nielsen ratings than did Monty's GH. If Wikipedia is correct, SFT had a record 16.1 Nielsen rating during the 1952-53 Season. ATWT had a bigger cultural impact than SFT, as the troubled marriage of Bob and Lisa appealed to many viewers during the early-60s. (For ATWT, it peaked at a 15.4 rating in the 1963-64 Season, compared to 11.4 for Monty's GH.)

 

ATWT's dominance was finally challenged by Agnes Nixon's AW, Bill Bell's DOOL, and the dual medical dramas of The Doctors and a pre-Monty GH. But even with all that, soaps were still (very unfairly) viewed as disposable, throw-away material. It wasn't until the mid-70s when public perceptions of soaps were altered, as AMC and Y&R changed the game and attained white-hot levels of popularity among a younger and more urban audience. Since Gloria Monty's first stint at GH began not long thereafter, some understandably but erroneously believe that was when soaps were at their most popular.

Edited June 27, 2021 by Max

[DRW50]

Welcome back, @Max.