Ratings from the 80's

[kalbir]

Y&R is destroying everything in its path, time slot wise and overall. It's the combination of owing its time slot, having strong lead ins, and maintaining its audience during the writer's strike that got Y&R to #1. 1989 had the pivotal storylines of Victor taking over Jabot and Phillip III's car accident that set everything in motion for the 1990s but the rest of the big storylines Brad in a cage, George Rawlins murder, Kay/Marge I didn't think were very good plus Cricket was still eating the show. Y&R also had their third big cast departure in as many years when Terry Lester (RIP) left in September 1989.

Yet Another World managed to stay on the air another decade. If NBC hadn't been such a mess on the whole in the late 1970s, Another World probably would have ended in 1979.

Changing times and changing tastes. The big 1980s trends were probably wearing thin at this point.

[GLATWT88]

Isn't that a bit soon? AW was NBC's top rated soap in 1979. I don't think AW drops out of the top until mid 1980 and even then it's not like Days is pulling big numbers, at least not for a while.  

[Contessa Donatella]

I wondered about that, also, but I guessed he was picking that year because it's the 90 min. year. Which also makes it the end of the Lemay tenure. 

[watson71]

In Beverlee McKinsey’s City Lights interview in 1982, she states that AW was making NBC $40+ million in profit from advertising revenue a year.  I suspect that AW lasted as long as it did because it was still turning a profit for NBC- maybe not $40 million- but still a profit.  The minute that Edge of Night and Search for Tomorrow stopped turning a profit for P&G they were cancelled.  NBC wanted to keep SFT for another 13 week cycle, but P&G cancelled the show at the end of 1986, so they would not be in the red in 1987 losing money on the show.

[TEdgeofNight]

Jason, I have a screenshot from another site from the April, 1988 issue of Daytime TV Magazine that matches up the ratings from 10/19 - 10/23/87. Remember that magazine dates were always way ahead, thus the April issue reporting ratings from October. I’m not posting that screenshot for privacy reasons. The ratings and shares for that week were: GH 7.8/27 AMC 7.6/27 OLTL 7.4/27 Y&R 7.4/28 DAYS 6.4/23 ATWT 6.1/22 GL 5.5/19 B&B 4.9/17 AW 4.6/17 SB 4.5/16 LOV 4.2/16 RH 3.0/12

And the 12/14 - 12/18/87 week from another source: 

AMC 8.2/27 GH 8.1/26 OLTL 8.1/26 Y&R 7.9/28 DAYS 6.8/22 ATWT 6.7/22 GL 5.9/19 B&B 5.3/18 SB 5.2/17 AW 5.1/17 LOV 4.2/15 RH 3.2/12

Edited November 5, 2023 by TEdgeofNight

[kalbir]

1979 Another World was head-to-head w/ General Hospital and as we all know, General Hospital blew up that year and would dominate for the better part of 1979-1986, therefore Another World effectively over.

Edited November 5, 2023 by kalbir

[GLATWT88]

I can understand it from this perspective, especially since GH blows up and AW lagged behind all other timeslot competition. But the same can be said for all of NBC soaps at the time. Each one was last in their timeslot, at least AW had better numbers. It would seem like a poor decision to axe it unless something else was going on behind the scenes. 

Edited November 5, 2023 by GLATWT88

[JAS0N47]

Bold and the Beautiful: 1987-1989: Full Preemptions:

 

7/7/87 The Price Is Right 2                      
7/8/87 The Price Is Right 2                      
7/9/87 The Price Is Right 2                      
7/10/87 The Price Is Right 2                      
7/14/87 Young and the Restless
7/15/87 Price Is Right 2                
7/17/87 Price Is Right 2
7/23/87 Price Is Right 2                      
7/29/87 Hearings                      
8/3/87 (Local Fill)                      
9/7/87 US Open Tennis                      
9/11/87 US Open Tennis                      
11/26/87 J.T.                  
11/27/87 A Thanksgiving Treasure                      
12/8/87 Summit Signing Ceremony                      
12/25/87 NBA on CBS                      
12/31/87 As the World Turns
1/1/88 Cotton Bowl                      
2/15/88 NBA on CBS                      
9/5/88 US Open Tennis                      
9/9/88 US Open Tennis                      
11/24/88 NFL Football
11/25/88 Care Bears Movie II                      
12/26/88 Movie Special: Quarterback Princess    
1/2/89 Cotton Bowl
1/20/89 Price Is Right 2
2/20/89 NBA on CBS
9/4/89 US Open Tennis
9/8/89 US Open Tennis 
11/23/89 Dink the Little Dinosaur
11/24/89 Garfield & Friends
12/25/89 Homecoming

 

Bold and the Beautiful: 1987-1989: Partial Preemptions & Special Airings:

 

4/7/87 130-149 & 157-2PM (22 minutes)                       
5/5/87 (rated as breakout)                       
5/29/87 130-145 & 156-2PM (19 minutes)                                           
9/14/87 (rated as breakout)                       
9/22/87 Tuesday episode- 1:31PM (29 minutes)                       
10/16/87 1:45PM (15 minutes)                        
4/18/88 (23 minutes)                        
12/7/88 1:32PM (28 minutes)                        
7/28/89 1:45PM (15 minutes)  
7/31/89 1:42PM (18 minutes)   

[te.]

In hindsight, it does seem like a bit of a waste to keep Another World behind DAYS especially those times when DAYS had ratings resurgences. Maybe not when General Hospital was murdering everything in the way in the time slot, but by the late 80s/early 90s it was odd that they didn't even seem to consider moving it until Passions came along.

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 5/1/89-5/5/89 & 5/8/89-5/12/89:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 5/15/89-5/19/89 & 5/22/89-5/26/89:

[Contessa Donatella]

I don't think that networks made decisions to cancel based solely on another network's sudden success. Nor should they have. Especially if the shows were still money-makers. I know in the case of AW and later in the case of GL that those two shows in particular still made enough money that it counted.

[kalbir]

Y&R this week was Phillip III car accident. May 26 Thom Bierdz departure.

Also Y&R in May 1989 was Victor taking over Jabot.

Guiding Light in the top 5 for the first time since late 1985. The Friday cliffhanger was a masked Roger crashing Phillip and Blake's wedding and the following Tuesday Springfield learned that Roger survived the fall off the cliff in Santo Domingo.

Edited November 5, 2023 by kalbir

[JAS0N47]

My thanks to TEdgeofNight for tracking down the shares for these two weeks!  I have re-issued both charts and replaced them in the thread, so each week now lists the shares! Hopefully those two Nielsen books will be found someday, but in the meantime, these are the numbers to be used:

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[TEdgeofNight]

The Roger crashing the wedding scenes were filmed in Another World's Brooklyn studio. GL's studio couldn't accommodate the swinging of the vine so they went on 'location' to another soap studio and the ratings paid off.

Edited November 5, 2023 by TEdgeofNight

[Contessa Donatella]

We do know from some BTS info that by that time NBC really wanted the show, not moved, but off the air & NBC and P&G fought over it. In 1993 P&G and the Dobsons were all set for them to HW the show but NBC blocked it. So there was maneuvering going on all the time.