Ratings from the 80's

[Soapsuds]

Looking back..

GL ratings period of 8/14 had the revelation that Dylan was Reva's son. It didn't do much of anything for the ratings.

[JoeCool]

August 1989 was the time All My Children and One Life to Live began to fight for the Number 3 spot. OLTL will start slipping in the ratings and drop. All My Children will firm up the Number 3 slot. GH will also begin to drop and keep Number 2. GH's ratings will slip further in 1990 and AMC will overtake GH for Number 2  in 1990 while OLTL will drop out of the top 5 during 1990 and never again strongly compete in the ratings.

Edited November 9, 2023 by JoeCool

[JAS0N47]

As we start heading into the stuff already posted from the Soap Opera Weekly scans for Fall 1989-Spring 1992, I hope you all will continue to enjoy the daily posts of the ratings, which will soon move over to the 90's Ratings thread. Also, I did check the first couple, but I don't feel like comparing them all, so once I start posting the stuff from Soap Opera Weekly, if some people here would please compare them to the Weekly ratings and let me know of any discrepancies. It might just mean I made a typing mistake, or it could be that sometimes they might differ from what Weekly has listed. 

If you are doing the comparisons, please check the Soap Opera Weekly ratings here: http://www.jason47.com/days/nielsens1990.html   And, thanks in advance to anyone who helps out with confirming that both sets of numbers match up!

[kalbir]

So writing was an issue too. Thanks for the info.

Is that why Peter Reckell and Kristian Alfonso returned the following spring (I think April or May 1990 was their return) for the tail end of the supercouple era? The shipwreck in June and July was the last big action/adventure storyline of the supercouple era and the supercouple era came to end with Stephen Nichols departure in October I think.

[Khan]

I guess that's why Robert Calhoun never cared for Pamela K. Long's writing, or why he favored Nancy Curlee over her.  For all the good she did in stabilizing the show creatively after the free-fall of 1985 and '86, her work wasn't appealing to anyone outside of GL's hard-core audience.

IIRC, only Peter Reckell was interested in returning full-time, so the writers used the "Cruise of Deception" storyline as a means of killing off Hope, so that Bo would be free to pursue new romantic partnerships in Salem.

Anne Howard Bailey's only real success in daytime was as HW at GH from 1982-1985, but even that accomplishment is questionable when you consider how much control Gloria Monty had over the writing and the fact that GH was still such a juggernaut that it really didn't matter who was writing the show at that time or how good they were.  And when you watch scenes from that period on YouTube...?  Yeah, individual scenes might be pretty good, but the actual storylines stink; and if it grabs your interest at all, it's because Monty knew how to edit the shows enough to create the sense of excitement and action that she needed.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Khan

[Soapsuds]

Oh? I didn't know that. I wish Robert would've stayed at WT. Long's second stint was too much Reva. She even added an annoying family around here. There was a lot of white characters too. By white I mean all goody goody....or her characters were annoying like Alan Michael, Harley, Dylan etc etc.....and she brought back Roger and had no clue what to do with him.

[Khan]

Also - and I'm probably the only one who thinks this - but I think location had a lot to do with GL's struggles during that period.  By 1987 or '88, production of the show had moved to EUE/Screen Gems - and I dunno, but to me, the energy on-screen was different there than it was at their old location in Chelsea (NYC).  Of course, it doesn't help knowing that that's the same studio space where EON and SFT went to die, lol.

I wish Robert Calhoun had moved onto AMC or OLTL.  Both shows - especially OLTL - needed a strong EP at that point.

[kalbir]

It seems like I'm the only person here that liked Robert Calhoun era GL.

[Khan]

No, you're not.  I loved Robert Calhoun's tenure on GL, too!  For the first time since Gail Kobe, GL had an EP with vision.  But he really wasn't a good match with Pam Long.  P&G should have brought Douglas Marland back to GL so that he and Calhoun could work their magic again, but that would have meant jeopardizing ATWT's newfound success.  It's to his credit, therefore, that he had the wisdom to promote Nancy Curlee to Co-HW, because I think that was just the jump-start that GL needed at that time.

[Soapsuds]

He wasn't the problem. It was Pam's writing and she didn't mesh well with Robert as a duo.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Soapsuds

[Khan]

Exactly.  Robert Calhoun was classy and elegant; Pamela K. Long was folksy and homespun.  It doesn't mean one or the other was awful; it just means they were incompatible.

[kalbir]

Oh good, I'm not alone

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I would go as far as to say that Robert Calhoun was GL's best EP in its final 25 years. Yes, Gail Kobe era from Spring 1983 to Summer 1984 set in motion characters/storylines that carried GL through its final 25 years but it was too much chasing 1980s trends to be sustainable in the long term and the ratings from Fall 1984 onward reflected that.

Edited November 9, 2023 by kalbir

[Contessa Donatella]

One time I brought up Calhoun blaming Holly partially for her rape. I said how I hoped that is something that wouldn't be said today. I remarked as to why it was a problematic statement. But, I was not in any way meaning to call his whole wonderful tenure into question. (Uh-oh.) And, I can assure you from the rousing & continuing defense of him that he is quite popular! You can take this as a testimonial to how great he was! 

[Khan]

The truth is, I loved when Robert Calhoun was EP'ing GL as much as I loved everything else about GL from as far back as I can remember to '95, when I think the show really started falling apart.  One reason for that is because GL always had, IMO, the best cast on daytime, second only to AMC's.  Another reason is that you had a core group of writers - Nancy Curlee, Stephen Demorest, Trent Jones, N. Gail Lawrence, Pete T. Rich, Melissa Salmons, etc. - who were there throughout to maintain some consistency in the writing.

Edited November 9, 2023 by Khan

[Franko]

I was originally going to object and bring up Jennifer, but she and Jack were more (for lack of a better description) "domestic" than the Big Four couples of the '80s.