Ratings from the 80's

[kalbir]

April 7, 1982 Y&R Jerry Douglas (RIP) debut.

[watson71]

The week of 3/15, AW featured the location sequence in San Diego with Mitch trying to kidnap Matthew and take him to Mexico.  AW improved from a 4.4/16 to a 5/18. The next week it dropped back to a 4.5/16.

[Paul Raven]

So SFT moving to NBC gave them nothing.

The few weeks before The Doctors had been getting a rating around 3.4-3.6. Search debuted with a 3.6 then dropped to below 2.9 within a month or so.

And we know SFT's demos skewed old so doubtful it was doing any better than TD in that regard.

Meanwhile TD replaced Password Plus which had been averaging 3.4/13, within a month TD was  rating below a 2.0. And Password would have been way cheaper to produce.

The best NBC could do was move Texas to the morning, throw in Diff'rent Strokes and Chips  reruns and then Fantasy at 3pm for the Fall.

[kalbir]

I would think Capitol was scoring better in the demos than Search for Tomorrow. Capitol served two purposes: CBS wanted something more glamorous to compete with ABC and it was a placeholder/time filler until Bill Bell had a second show ready.

 

April 30, 1982 Y&R David Hasselhoff departure.

 

We're about a year away from the start of supercouple Days and then there will be some signs of life for NBC.

Edited August 16, 2023 by kalbir

[Manny]

The ratings seem to be generally slipping (for some more, for some to a lesser extent), so I was wondering if the rise of the sale of VCRs is attributing to this. I thought maybe 1982 would be too early for this, but I found a chart. So I guess VCR sales will really explode in 1985. 

[Paul Raven]

NBC's response to those awful ratings for SFT and TD was to write out vet characters Janet and Kathy and bring in a slew of newbie youngsters-Kristin, Warren, Jenny,Keith etc Ellis/Hunt were dropped as headwriters for C David Colsen

TD hired Harding Lemay but he lasted but a few months. A pity we will not see his work.

With that timeslot and those ratings there was no hope for The Doctors but they did keep trying.

Meanwhile CBS was mounting a challenge to ABC. In addition to adding Capitol, Guiding Light was remaining strong, the Dobsons returned to ATWT and Bill Bell was revamping Y&R,

April, Barbara and the Stevens were dropped, Snapper and Lance were written out. John,Ashley and Traci were added and (unwisely) Angela and Claire Laurence arrived.

Edited August 16, 2023 by Paul Raven

[JAS0N47]

The Nielsen books start listing VCR percentages at some point in 1988 or 1989.

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 5/24/82-5/28/82 & 5/31/82-6/4/82:

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 6/7/82-6/11/82 & 6/14/82-6/18/82:

[TEdgeofNight]

So many BAD decisions by the networks during the 82 era. The numbers reflect the bad decisions. 

[Gray Bunny]

As I was going through late '81 and early '82, I actually forgot we were about to see the network switch for SFT. It really is a shame CBS dropped it, considering it was still in the middle of the pack, beating all of NBC and 1, sometimes 2 (Ryan's Hope) ABC shows. 

[kalbir]

June 11, 1982 Y&R Eileen Davidson debut.

June 17, 1982 Y&R Beth Maitland debut.

[GLATWT88]

Wow! Ryan's Hope beating out GL and YR. It pains me to see GL in the 6s after such incredibly strong weeks and numbers. 

I think ABC's dominance in the late 70s/ early 80s really played with networks decision making. They were making choices that would ultimately further harm their long running soaps. I've been watching bits of 1981 GL and the ratings here support how well the show was performing in spite of heavy competition from GH, but it seems like even CBS wasn't satisfied. I found the following on Wikipedia, unsure of how true it is but it definitely fits the narrative of the networks making such impulsive decisions around these years...

Writer Marland quit in 1982 due to a dispute over treatment of his friend Jane Elliot, when the Carrie multiple personality disorder storyline did not carry Guiding Light's ratings to #1 above its rival, General Hospital. Elliot was fired by Allen Potter, and Marland ended the storyline. Before Marland quit, Guiding Light won its second Daytime Emmy for Outstanding Daytime Drama, for the 1981 – 1982 television season, and despite Marland's departure, things looked very well for this long time CBS drama.

Edited August 16, 2023 by GLATWT88

[Contessa Donatella]

In the Daytime Emmys, 1981-1982, winning for Best Writing over AMC, OLTL & GH, Douglas Marland accepts on behalf of his writing team by first names including Pete, and thanks among others, 2 from P&G (Schultz & Trach I think) and 2 from CBS, ironically the second name from CBS is Brian Frons, which today makes us cringe, and he acknowledges the honor of being nominated by peers & specifically notes that honor when you are among such as an Agnes Nixon & then he thanks all of the actors & seems to name AW, the 3 ABC soaps & GL & dedicates the award to those actors because they take the writer's words to the audience. Well, that is a paraphrase, but my point is only that as acceptance speeches go it was remarkable, so good, etc. I wonder if the clip shown was their reel. Courtroom scene. Here's the clip: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YaIavruefVE 

 

[Broderick]

6/18/1982 -- Y&R beginning to recapture a little bit of its 1979 momentum here.  

[EONGLOLTL]

I've always wondered if CBS time slot changes in 1981 would have been served better with Search for Tomorrow moving to 1:30 instead of 2:30.  I don't know about the demos for either show but CBS was weakened with cancelling Search and putting on Capitol.  As the World Turns head to head with One Life to Live seems a stronger move for CBS and that kept the one, two punch of As the World Turns and Guiding Light together.

[GLATWT88]

I'm curious what a YR/ATWT/GL vs AMC/OLTL/GH at 1/2/3pm would have looked like. I do believe YR benefited from its 12:30 timeslot, but it was obviously successful for just being a solid soap. YR and GL were performing well. GL performed solidly until 1985 and then it started to slip. The 84/85 season had YR and GL ranked 3rd and 4th above OLTL (5). YR was a tenth of a point below AMC and it was only up from there.

The 12:30 slot proved to be less successful on the other networks starting in the 80s with several half hour soaps taking up short residencies. BB's success is in large part due to not being placed at 12:30 like most of the other soap and being bookended by two established soaps, one of which would soon lead daytime for decades.