Ratings from the 80's

[JAS0N47]

DAYTIME DEMOS: FEBRUARY 1981:

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[JAS0N47]

DAYTIME DEMOS: FEBRUARY 1982:

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[TEdgeofNight]

Fascinating, Jason to see the demos. If I’m reading the Feb 1981 numbers right, Edge of Night, which had less than half of GH’s total viewers, has a higher women 25-54 and 35-64 viewership than GH. And OLTL,AMC and Ryan’s Hope were beating GH in many key demos. This was all during the GH heyday when they were solidly #1 in households. 

[tybuki]

Looking at these numbers makes it even more confounding that NBC decided it was a good idea to cancel Blockbusters, Battlestars, and Password Plus (which was doing better numbers than The Doctors) to save Texas. I get the Search For Tomorrow move, but it just equaled bad decisions by NBC.

[kalbir]

@tybuki It bears repeating. NBC was a mess across the board in the early 1980s. Daytime starting showing signs of life in 1983 w/ the start of supercouple Days. Primetime didn't recover until Fall 1984 when The Cosby Show premiered.

Edited November 19, 2023 by kalbir

[Khan]

God rest his soul, but Fred Silverman really destroyed NBC in the late '70's.  If not for the success of "The Cosby Show," who knows where that network would be today.

[TEdgeofNight]

@JAS0N47 Thanks for the demos. I know you’re just posting the books but some numbers don’t make sense and I’m curious how you interpret them. Again, you just post the Nielsen numbers. In May, 1982, I do not believe for a second that Texas was beating GH in the women demos. GH had 3X the audience of Texas. These numbers need some explanation. 

[JAS0N47]

(I think you mean Feb. 1982, but other than that)...I never really looked much at these pages, but I do see what you are seeing, so it is confusing. I'm not an expert in Nielsen ratings, especially the demos, but I can certainly see why you are confused. I am confused by that comparison too.

It says Total Persons watching Texas that week was 1487 and GH 1286, yet GH had a 10 rating and Texas had a 3 rating.

So, as for the demos, I am just as confused as you by that!

 

 

[TEdgeofNight]

Thanks again Jason. I know you’re just reporting the numbers and can’t explain them, especially the demos, which are confusing. You’re the best.

[JAS0N47]

The 10/19/87 book has been found!  As you expected, 7 of the soaps had PARTIAL preemptions that week. Will post the updated chart next.

Replacing these items in the October post with the Nielsen chart below. As discussed earlier this year, VR's post had the original OLTL rating at 7.4. Once the 17-minute Tuesday 5.5 rating was taken out and made a breakout, that got OLTL a point higher to 7.5 for the week. The breakout accounts for the discrepancy between VR's #s and the #s posted in Daytime TV.

[BoldRestless]

Wow! I'm a completist so this makes me very happy. Amazing work. 

[JAS0N47]

I have updated the preemptions lists on Page 115 of the thread to include the 7 partial preemptions the week of 10/19/87.

[Soapsuds]

@JAS0N47

Do you happen to have ratings for the syndicated shows from the 80s?

 

[JAS0N47]

Sorry, no, these Nielsen books only cover ABC, CBS, NBC (and eventually FOX) shows.

[kalbir]

As of September 8, 1986, the only syndicated show that mattered was Oprah. I am 99% sure Oprah clobbered everything from when the show went national until the end of the decade.