Ratings from the 80's

[Soapsuds]

Thank You!

What was the ranking for ATWT for those two weeks?

[Pine Charles]

Thank-you, Jason.

So can the "20 Million viewers" finally be debunked?

Who the hell started that falsehood, anyhow?

It never made sense, given ATWT's yearly average for the time.

And while Steve & Betsy may have been a popular couple for the show, they weren't a phenomenon (which would warrent a viewing figure as strong as 20 Million).

Weird.

Edited July 11, 2023 by Pine Charles

[JAS0N47]

They don't provide the ranking. I don't have time to look through all the soaps and figure it out, so once I compile that week's ratings, they get sorted in the Excel chart by rating, which creates the ranking, and gets posted here.

[kalbir]

@JAS0N47 If you don't mind my asking, could you please post Y&R rating for the week of April 9-13, 1984? Thank you.

[soapfan770]

Blame a couple inaccurate soap books back in the the 1980’s. In the cases of GL hitting #1 in 1984 and ATWT having 20 million viewers I know SOD republished those “factoids” a number of times in the late 90s and early 2000’s hence perpetuating the myths as facts for years. 

[JAS0N47]

7.9/31.

[kalbir]

Thanks again @JAS0N47 . 

[JAS0N47]

The Nielsen data below now confirms all of the Iran Contra Hearings preemptions for the weeks of 7/13/87 and 7/20/87. Now we know why I never had any preemptions listed for "Days."  Only "Days" and AMC were untouched by the hearings, since they were usually on a lunch break from 1PM-2PM.

 

In order to make the chart read-able, I had to split the YR preemption data into a second line.

 

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/13/87-7/17/87 & 7/20/87-7/24/87:

 

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IRAN CONTRA HEARINGS BROADCASTS: WEEKS OF 7/13/87-7/17/87 & 7/20/87-7/24/87:

 

Edited July 18, 2023 by JAS0N47

[YRfan23]

That's so incredible!!  This info that haunted most of us for years and now we know most of it!! You are a true gift from heaven my friend!! 

I hope you will be able to get the week of July 6-10, 1987 at some point!  

[JAS0N47]

I have everything from July 1979-September 1987 except for 1 week in 1981, so it's all there now in my files. I had a little time to figure these two weeks out, so I posted it tonight. The rest of the weekly info will be coming!

[YRfan23]

Can't wait!!

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 thank you so much again!! 

[kalbir]

Wow, this is amazing. You should be knighted 

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[BoldRestless]

Thank you! Definitely the one I've been waiting for. After all these years, to see that the shows were preempted by... Card Sharks?!? Price is Right?! 25,000 Pyramid?! I get it, it's easier to broadcast that stuff when the hearings keep interrupting things, but it's so not what I ever expected!

 

If it helps, I had saved a couple of posts from this thread in the past. On page 23, user @VanessaReardon posts that Y&R only aired Monday that week. And on page 24, notes no preemptions for any show the week ending 8/7/1987. This is based on the weekly ratings info, so I'll be happy to get confirmation when Jason posts the day by day ratings, but this gets us very close!

 

[YRfan23]

Thanks! I never knew about that page!!

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 so that does confirm Y&R only aired Monday. 
 

we would need July 27-31 1987 and possibly August 3-7 1987 to get the rest of the data.

[JAS0N47]

They probably decided to do that since those shows would have only aired in the Eastern & Central time zones. The hearings were on from 2-5PM, so that would have preempted both YR & BB in the Mountain & Pacific time zones, where the hearings were aired from 11AM-2PM.