Ratings from the 80's

[JAS0N47]

In any previous Game Show lists, I never listed the preemption data, but I did for this one:

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[JoeCool]

Week of 6/22: Ryan's Hope in 4th place WOW! ABC soaps rank in top 4 spots! RH beating Restless wow!! And the entire CBS lineup and NBC lineup!

[kalbir]

CBS new schedule is paying off for Y&R and Search for Tomorrow.

Edited August 6, 2023 by kalbir

[BoldRestless]

Wow, thanks for typing that all out. It's crazy how detailed that is to the minute.

[Broderick]

The "tanking" of Y&R's ratings is really more attributable to the ripple effect of ABC's rise (propelling "Ryan's Hope" temporarily upward) than anything storyline-wise on Y&R, in my opinion. 

However, the storylines cresting on Y&R in 1981 weren't anything spectacular.  If they were seen on television nowadays, we'd probably say, "Oh, that's not TOO terrible", but at the time they seemed fairly dismal. 

A huge chunk of the show dealt with Lorie and Leslie's custody battle over Brooks Prentiss.  There was much "psycho-babble" from the judge and the attorneys about the rights of a "psychological mother" (Lorie) versus a "biological mother" (Leslie), which wasn't exactly enthralling drama.   And ALL of this was predicated on the misconception that Lucas Prentiss (rather than Lance) was the kid's father.  So at the conclusion of all this long harangue, Brooks was calling Lorie "mommy" and Lucas "dad", while referring to his mother as "Aunt Leslie" and his father as "Uncle Lance".  It was silly and seemed to move the entire storyline further (rather than closer) to its endgame.    

Eric Braeden was turning in some chilling performances as Victor, but he was a relatively new character, and his imprisonment of Michael Scott seemed more tawdry and morbid than realistic.  Everything in the storyline depended upon whether or not Paul Williams (another fairly new character) would check Randy's claims of being Michael Scott with Jill Foster (a recent recast) at Jabot.  Again, nothing terribly interesting there.  

April Stevens' parents, Wayne and Dorothy, were VERY lower-class, poverty-stricken characters who didn't have air conditioning in their hovel.  So Wayne sat around in a wife-beater tee-shirt watching TV and guzzling beer where Dorothy Stevens pushed an iron back and forth across a blouse, and both of them sweated like mules, looked frazzled, sticky, and overheated.  April would pop in, sweat like a racehorse, and ask them nosy questions about her twin sister.  Not anything terribly interesting there, and the set looked as though it SMELLED terrible. 

Roberta Leighton's Casey had one foot out the door -- the actress was leaving -- and was suddenly embroiled in a predictably dull "stalker storyline", in which her protector was Jonas, another character most viewers didn't care much about.  Casey soon snapped, nearly killed an old codger at the hospital on a treadmill, and disappeared from the show the next day. 

The stalker then moved his attentions to Nikki, who "inherited" Jonas, also had Jerry Cashman on hand (as she was a stripper in his club), also had Andy Richards (who was a bartender), also had Paul Williams (who was divorcing the sweating April), also had ex-husband Greg Foster's concern (and he suddenly began having mysterious migraines), and there was also Edward from next door (who was obviously the stalker all along.)  Wasn't a lot of suspense there. 

Chris Brooks was frantically popping Valium, which alarmed Snapper, but it turned out she was "anxious" because her furniture wasn't nice enough to suit her.  Snapper didn't want her to have anything nice, as he was running a free clinic, and evidently it would look terrible to Dr. Young, who was funding the free clinic, if Chris had a sofa that wasn't ripped to shreds.  So a new doctor (Jane) decided to bed Snapper.  Guess Jane could purchase her OWN sofa if she wanted one.  Again, dull as hell. 

About the only things percolating that were truly interesting and realistic (to me) were teenage rocker Danny's little crush on Patty Williams, who was smitten with the older, more mature playboy, Jack Abbott, who often took advantage of Patty's naïve nature and made Deborah Adair's Jill roll her eyes sarcastically and Carolyn Conwell's Mary Williams clutch her pearls and belt out a Hail Mary.  

Also, once that nonsense with Michael Scott and the cellar came mercifully to a screeching close, Victor Newman began buying-up shares of Prentiss Industries, which cemented Victor Newman as the ruthless, cutthroat, but vulnerable character who later would "define" the show during the 1980s.  We would see him begin a cat-&-mouse game with Lorie Brooks of acquiring her Prentiss shares, which she freely handed over to him, because Vanessa Prentiss led her to believe that Lance didn't love her anymore.  This was our more realistic "payoff" for suffering through all that nonsense about Brooks Prentiss's custody hearing. 

You'll likely see the show begin to slowly increase in the ratings as it eventually found its footings again, by retooling Victor Newman into a formidable business-type character, by taking advantage of Kay Chancellor's cutting sarcasm, by highlighting Nikki Reed's dingbat flightiness, by better defining Jack Abbott's devil-may-care spoiled playboy mannerisms, and then a few months later, the introduction of Eileen Davidson, Beth Maitland, and Jerry Douglas to round out the main cast.  Those characters (along with Paul and Andy) were destined to be the "new" Y&R, but in the summer of 1981, they were all stuck in a morass of storylines that really weren't working, surrounding by characters who desperately needed to be written off. 

[JoeCool]

The drop-off of Restless' ratings might not be a "tanking" but it  is significant drop off. ABC had been rising  for quite a while and Restless was right up in the top 3 or even close to Number 1. 6th place is not where Restless should reside. SOunds more like the transition to an hour plus the schedule change and the storylines shifting to Newman and Nikki and the Abbotts slowed Restless down a bit.

[Broderick]

I think it was the uncertainty of where Y&R was going at the time -- which was visible in the storylines that seemed thrown randomly at the wall to see what would stick -- that was the ultimate problem in 1980 and 1981.  It was a show that had seemed clearly defined and unique, and suddenly with the expansion to an hour, there was so much murkiness in motivation, so much stopping and starting, the indecision of which characters deserved focus and which were merely peripheral.  (Characters like Wayne & Dorothy Stevens and the ex-wife of Andy Richards would've never been given storylines during the crisp half-hour days, nor once the hour-long program refocused on its more appealing characters.)

That, combined with the temporary runaway success of the ABC line-up, took a definite toll on the show.  

[JoeCool]

ABC's "temporary" success in the ratings ...depending when you start to measure started as early as 1978 or as late as 1981 and lasted until late 1984. So 6+ years or 3 years. Bill Bell ran a tight and good ship at Restless so I think CBS forcing Bill to go to an hour in Feb 1980 rattled his cage a little storyline wise. Bell seemed to get his mojo back in late 1981 and he never really faltered after this period until he retired in 1998. Very impressive!!

[Broderick]

By "temporary", I'm thinking of those phenomenal double-digit years for General Hospital that began around 1979 or 1980 and then hemorrhaged away around 1984 or 1985.  

[JoeCool]

General Hospital honestly was not a good show after 1982...all the action adventure stories were awful. The double digits were temporary and really not warranted and the other show that really competed with GH was Guiding Light. No real competiton from NBC at all. After Genie Francis left in 1981, ratings started to drop. All My Children almost beat GH for the crown for the 1982-1983 season.

Honestly, if GH had to compete against Restless it would have been an entirely different ballgame. The fact GH is still on the air baffles me. All My Children and One Life to Live were always (for the most part) better than GH. That's an entirely other matter though!

[kalbir]

1980-1982 was Y&R's surviving period. 1980 and 1981 just seem like a mess overall and 1982 was the big cast change.

1983 was putting the finishing touches on the transition and 1984 was when Y&R really became Y&R as we know it today.

In the ratings we saw Y&R become CBS's highest-rated soap by 1983 and #1 overall by 1989.

Y&R's rise to #1 was a combination of owning its time slot, having strong lead ins with The Price is Right and local news, and maintaining its audience during and after the 1988 Writer's Strike.

Edited August 6, 2023 by kalbir

[Broderick]

GH sure lured a ton of new viewers into the genre during its biggest years; sadly those viewers left about as quickly as they had arrived.  

What did remain, of course, was the "formula" perceived as having brought new viewers into the fold -- the "love on the run stories", the shorter, choppier scenes, the emphasis on action and adventure over character development.  

It wasn't a format that necessarily appealed to the longer-term viewers, but we were unfortunately treated to that style of storytelling whether we liked it or not (and to an extent, we're still getting it!  After all, if that's what viewers enjoyed in 1981, we must still like it today. lol.)     

[JAS0N47]

That is Nielsens one purpose! To accurately rate everything on TV. And to do that, they need an accurate record of the exact times everything aired. 

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 6/29/81-7/3/81 & 7/6/81-7/10/81:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 7/13/81-7/17/81 & 7/20/81-7/24/81:

 

[Gray Bunny]

Thanks as always @JAS0N47

For as much as we know that a whole new slew of people began watching daytime soaps around this time, at the same time we can see how the AMC/OLTL/GH powerhouse block really did siphon off viewers from CBS & NBC. It's such a steep drop from the top 3 shows; down into the 7's for CBS's leading shows. It's interesting to see at this time, how it's basically a clear cut of ABC top tier, CBS in the middle, NBC at the bottom.