Ratings from the 80's

[Franko]

I've started doing some preliminary research for when Geraldo! debuted on Sept. 7, 1987. First of all, the national debut was considerably low (the Los Angeles Times reported only 60 stations for the premiere, while the New York Times said it was about 90) -- I've yet to confirm if the show initially aired in Philadelphia. Second, most of the stations I've seen so far have been ABC affiliates, which will give us something interesting to watch with Ryan's Hope and Loving. 

[j swift]

Your post inspired me to read about the infamous chair fight on Geraldo.  For those too young to recall, In November 1998, Geraldo had a member of a racial hate group on stage with Roy Innis who was the leader of CORE (Congress of Racial Equality) and when the hate monger threatened and insulted Mr. Innis, he threw a chair at him.  This made headlines, Geraldo was on the cover of Newsweek Magazine, and ratings increased.

However, as the NY Times noted, Mr. Innis had similarly gotten into a fight the prior summer on another talk show.  Thus, there is an inference that Geraldo, who was struggling in the ratings, pulled the stunt at the start of his second season, in order to get a boost in audience share.

I thought it was insightful of @Franko to make the connection between the rise of trash talk TV with the demise of Ryan's Hope, which happened in January 1989, because that genre fought for affiliate time with the soaps.  As we recall, neither Geraldo, Jerry Springer, nor Maury Povich started as trash talkers, but their shows evolved according to the ratings.  They might not have been trying to appeal to the same audience as the soaps, but they surpassed the soaps in terms of ratings per dollar because they were so cheap to produce.

 

Edited October 2, 2023 by j swift

[Contessa Donatella]

Why was that? 

[Franko]

Thank you. My apologies if I'm pulling the thread too far into the talk direction, but the LA Times' pre-airing article had some interesting insight into early Geraldo! 

"Rivera said that his style will more resemble newsman Ted Koppel’s on Nightline than the cozy studio approach of Winfrey or Phil Donahue. Using news footage and occasional on-location shooting, Rivera wants things hot, controversial, visual. 

Subjects of the first week of shows: the handicapped and their families; Marla Hanson, the New York model whose face was slashed with a razor; high-tech dating; the medical procedure of using fetal material to treat Parkinson’s disease and its implications for the abortion issue, and 'AIDS Assassins,' about carriers of the HIV virus who do not inform their sex partners. 'It should be considered a felonious assault, or at least attempted murder,' Rivera said."

I'm wondering if it was easy to grab several ABC stations as affiliates thanks to Geraldo's many years on 20/20, even if he had already been off that show for about two years by September 1987.

Now back to our regularly-scheduled soap operas ...

[BoldRestless]

Thanks! It's interesting to see the raw data. Really hard to read, definitely prefer your charts. So for example on Week of 2/4/91-2/10/91 it looks like Days was interrupted during the 1-1:30 timeslot but resumed and aired from 1:30-2. But from this page, how can you tell which day of the week this happened? Or is that the cross-referencing you have to do? The page just says it's for the whole week. I looked on your site but of course, since this is not a full preemption it is not listed.

 

Definitely appreciate the work you do to put these together!

[YRfan23]

Thanks so much for adding this!!  

[JAS0N47]

These pages (the third section of the book) just tell us what the preemption reasons were. The first section of the book gives us the main info (the affiliates/clearance/days & times aired/demos), so that's where you find out when a show did NOT air. The second section of the book are the pages you've seen before (the weekly charts).

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 9/15/86-9/19/86 & 9/22/86-9/26/86:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 9/29/86-10/3/86 & 10/6/86-10/10/86:

[kalbir]

September 29, 1986: CBS returned 4 pm ET to affiliates.

October 6-10, 1986 Y&R dropped to 4th after killing it in the summer. What happened that week? Did ABC have something big go on?

Y&R big changes in the second half of 1986: Cricket is now a full time character and will eat the show for the remainder of the decade. H. Wesley Kenney is on the way out as EP and Ed Scott takes over.

One year of Marland As the World Turns and not much growth so far as shown on @beebs comparison of 1985/86 vs. 1984/85. The 3rd-6th tier was a crowded field w/ All My Children, One Life to Live, supercouple Days, Marland As the World Turns.

I'm watching clearances of the bottom three to see if there was an Oprah effect. We know Search for Tomorrow is winding down, the last episode is some three months away.

Edited October 2, 2023 by kalbir

[TEdgeofNight]

Fascinating 1991 ratings info Jason. You can see that the CBS soaps were "granny" old lady soaps. Advertisers wanted the young audience and CBS excelled in attracting anyone over 55. 

[beebs]

Capitol's cancellation looking increasingly justified as SB begins to nip at their heels, and AW comfortably beating them most weeks. Granted it seems every CBS soap was trending downward that fall, but I suspect James Lipton's writing didn't help matters much.

[kalbir]

I'd go as far to say that CBS didn't even want Capitol to begin with. Capitol did not do the first job CBS wanted it to do, something more glamorous to compete with ABC, but it served its second job, a placeholder/time filler until Bill Bell had a second show ready.

Sometimes I wonder if CBS regretted cancelling Search for Tomorrow. Even if CBS kept Search for Tomorrow, it probably would have ended as soon as Bill Bell had a second show ready.

Edited October 2, 2023 by kalbir

[GLATWT88]

Pretty sure CBS was done with Capitol at this point and knew Bold would replace it soon. 

[beebs]

Absolutely, I remember seeing that the official cancellation notice came in December, so I'm sure folks behind the scenes could see the writing on the wall at this point.

[Franko]

Nothing really spectacular on GH. The initial Duke and the mob/Burt Ramsey is Mr. Big storyline wouldn't conclude for another two months. There was also Alan's feigned death/Edward tries to get the Quartermaines' money back from Sean storyline and the setup for Lucy eventually being framed for murder.