Edge of Night hitting the Top 10 for the first time in years. If ABC had got more affiliates on board and a consistent time slot....

 

Why was CBS so quick to get rid of Search for Tomorrow?  Based on the late 1981-82 ratings, SFT ratings were on par with its lead-in As the World Turns, sometimes even getting better ratings than ATWT.  CBS really mishandled this situation.  I can't believe that P&G was too happy having ATWT being the lowest rated soap on CBS either,  or Another World's steep decline and the expensive flop that Texas became on NBC during this same time period.

5 hours ago, watson71 said:

Why was CBS so quick to get rid of Search for Tomorrow?  Based on the late 1981-82 ratings, SFT ratings were on par with its lead-in As the World Turns, sometimes even getting better ratings than ATWT.  CBS really mishandled this situation.  I can't believe that P&G was too happy having ATWT being the lowest rated soap on CBS either,  or Another World's steep decline and the expensive flop that Texas became on NBC during this same time period.

Maybe the demographics for SFT were skewing too old?

 

I wonder what might have happened if The Edge of Night had moved to ABC in September 1975 instead of December 1975 and had secured the 3:30 time slot with the same affiliate clearances as the other ABC soaps.  Where might they have been in 1981-1982?  They were almost neck and neck with As the World Turns and Search for Tomorrow in January 1982. 

14 hours ago, Paul Raven said:

Maybe the demographics for SFT were skewing too old?

 

I suspect CBS wanted something more glamorous to compete w/ ABC. If Y&R wasn't in transition mode during the early 1980s, maybe Bill Bell would have had a second show ready for CBS by 1982.

20 hours ago, watson71 said:

Why was CBS so quick to get rid of Search for Tomorrow?  Based on the late 1981-82 ratings, SFT ratings were on par with its lead-in As the World Turns, sometimes even getting better ratings than ATWT.  CBS really mishandled this situation.  I can't believe that P&G was too happy having ATWT being the lowest rated soap on CBS either,  or Another World's steep decline and the expensive flop that Texas became on NBC during this same time period.

 

That's good question. Interestingly enough during the Corrington era of SFT CBS had actually flirted with the idea of expanding SFT to an hour as the show was rejuvenated at the time and Bell was very against the notion Y&R going to an hour length. The Y&R and SFT relationship was interesting in this time period; SFT benefited from Y&R as a lead-in in many markets, yet Y&R benefited being sandwiched between SFT and ATWT in many other markets as since CBS didn't program the 1:00ET/12:00CT/PT time slot, many markets who wanted a Noon newscast just simply delayed Y&R for that slot. 

 

I've never been able to pinpoint who was to blame for SFT's cancellation at CBS.  P&G blamed CBS and said that SFT lost ratings and fairing badly in the 2:30 slot but reality of the numbers says different. CBS blamed P&G saying P&G only wanted to SFT in the 12:30PM ET slot. Bell actually had another soap in the works as early as 1976; it was mentioned as a Y&R spinoff but whether or not this was his RAGS soap is not clear. The only winner in the situation was Bill Bell himself, mainly because Jon Conboy was now off his soap right after Conboy had threatened to fire Bell from his own soap. 

33 minutes ago, kalbir said:

I suspect CBS wanted something more glamorous to compete w/ ABC. If Y&R wasn't in transition mode during the early 1980s, maybe Bill Bell would have had a second show ready for CBS by 1982.

That makes it a lot clearer, there were a LOT of proposed soaps for CBS in the early '80's that never panned out. 

I'm now wondering what would have happened if NBC kept SFT at the 2:30 slot (where it was doing better than legend has it) rather than airing it at 12:30. Imagine, if you will:

 

12:00 -- DOCTORS (Since NBC seemed determined to kill it off, anyway)

12:30 -- TEXAS (Still likely to die opposite Y&R and AMC; a more noble fate than falling to TPIR?)

1:30 -- DOOL (OTOH, it doesn't seem like the best lead-in for SFT)

2:30 -- SFT (I'm liking the idea of OLTL leading, while the stable veteran dukes it out with the cocky upstart)

3:00 -- AW (Who knows if it could have gained some of the success GL supposedly did during GH's mid-80s hiccup?)

15 hours ago, Franko said:

3:00 -- AW (Who knows if it could have gained some of the success GL supposedly did during GH's mid-80s hiccup?)

With how all over the place it was, I honestly don't think so. 1980-1981 was good, imo. But 81-82 seems like a disaster. 

With the July, 1982 edition of Daytime TV, they started publishing the ratings of all soaps, which reflects the move of Search to NBC and the debut of Capitol. 

Wow, I'm surprised to see how low everyone was during the summer months. I would've thought a lot of shows would go up during June/July/August. 

 

NBC really shot Another World in the foot for its final 20 years... 

On 9/8/2019 at 11:36 AM, soapfan770 said:

I've never been able to pinpoint who was to blame for SFT's cancellation at CBS.  P&G blamed CBS and said that SFT lost ratings and fairing badly in the 2:30 slot but reality of the numbers says different. CBS blamed P&G saying P&G only wanted to SFT in the 12:30PM ET slot. Bell actually had another soap in the works as early as 1976; it was mentioned as a Y&R spinoff but whether or not this was his RAGS soap is not clear. The only winner in the situation was Bill Bell himself, mainly because Jon Conboy was now off his soap right after Conboy had threatened to fire Bell from his own soap. 

 

I remember a Bill Bell interview where he mentioned CBS approached him around 1977 about having a second show on the network's daytime lineup. If a second Bell show was ready to air in 1977 instead of 1987, I wonder where it would've gone on the lineup. I don't think Search for Tomorrow was in cancel territory in 1977 and I read elsewhere that Love of Life made a bit of a comeback ratings wise during the mid 1970s. I know CBS expanded Guiding Light to one hour in 1977 so the half hour that went to GL may have gone to a second Bell show instead.

 

What are your thoughts on Capitol? In my mind B&B was the intended replacement for Search for Tomorrow, Capitol was a placeholder/time filler until B&B was ready. It's hard to believe that B&B has had a longer run on CBS than Search for Tomorrow did.

@Paul Raven What happened to your prime time ratings? Was watching episode 1 from 86-87 season and was wondering where it ranked. It's the episode where Bobby jumps out of the shower...LOL