20 years since OJ Simpson coverage affected soaps

[BKuzak]

I guess it was 20 years ago today June 12th that Nichole and Ron were killed. I remember the trial being a big deal but I don't remember it really interfering with the ABC soaps. Does anyone remember it really affecting soaps. I know people talk about it like it was the begining of a decline of soaps and the 'advent' of reality TV. Maybe it affected CBS and NBC more.

Does anyone remember watching the trial? I remember very well the car chase but i think i only saw the trial occasionally.

[cuzIsaySo]

I remember the trial affecting mostly the cbs soaps for some reasons. I wasnt watching any of them back then (i think i just stopped watching GL around that time).

I dont know for the other network as I mostly just watched GH but i dont remember if GH was hit hard by the trial.

The Simpson trial is cited as one of the reason why some viewers broke their viewing habits and sadly many of them didnt come back to the fold once the trial was over.

ETA: the title of the thread comes across as kind of offensive. Jmho

[allmc2008]

He needs to rot. Not just for the murders but because of the thousands of jobs that were lost as a result. One can argue it was an excuse for the networks to pull out or that it was an excuse for people to stop watching but either way the ratings dropped significantly because of him so the shows were canceled. Also, the ratings were climbing at the start of the 90s. This caused the ratings to collapse.

[YRfan23]

I would love it if someone had an accurate list of which episodes from 1994-1995 were preempted for the CBS soaps....and if they actually aired any of the episodes in the wee hours of the morning?

[~bl~]

It depended on where you lived. For a time during the trial, they did a full pre-emption and they ended up showing all the episodes at a later date. This pushed episodes that were about the 4th of July to close to August, which was unbearable. Y&R that year was smart and had a special 4th of July episode they aired on the day as court was closed.

[DRW50]

The industry killed soaps. Soaps killed soaps. Not OJ.

[Gray Bunny]

I think DAYS aired a few primetime episodes to catch up, if I remember what I once read correctly.

The OJ Trial indeed helped accelerate the death of soaps. Numbers don't lie. Y&R hit a 9.7 the previous winter 1994. Other shows like GH and DAYS were up, too. GL, ATWT, Y&R, and AMC had huge declines, looking at year-to-year averages.

[DRW50]

They had declines, but they were already having declines, and they could have picked back up at least somewhat. The material was by and large so poor that they did not. Shows like DAYS managed to buck the trend.

Speaking for myself as a viewer, I had stopped watching GL out of anger a year before OJ. I was only barely hanging on with ATWT, and even that was sporadic.

OJ and working women are the go-to for an industry that never, ever takes responsibility for their failures.

[ReddFoxx]

I know in my household, that once the trial started, my mother and grandmother abandoned the soaps. That's just one example, but I do believe that there were lots of other viewers that fit that scenario. Soaps were already past the golden age by that time, but I think the story lines really started to go a more over the top direction when the ratings declined, which was an attempt to get viewers back, but it failed. While poor story lines contributed to soaps failing, there are other factors that were at play that sunk the ratings.

[DRW50]

My aunt was hooked on B&B and Y&R. She was quickly hooked on Court TV and watched that mess every day. Yet she went back to B&B and Y&R, and only gave up in recent years because she was so tired of Victor and of B&B's trashiness.

I don't doubt that quite a few people quit and never went back, but soaps never gave them a reason to come back.

Soaps having such open hatred for women and minorities, and for the traditions of soaps, were their death knell, IMO. And that started in the mid-90s. That's what happens when an entire industry is busy pulling its pud for a hack like Bob Guza who truly despised soap opera and spent over a decade spitting on it.

[Khan]

No, but I do remember laying the guilt on my Spanish teacher in order to (get a temporary retrieve from her boring-ass teaching style and) watch the verdict. I mean, I practically had her in tears for "depriving us from witnessing history." I loved it, lol.

[Khan]

Exactly. To this day I have maintained that it wasn't the trial itself that hurt daytime dramas as it was TPTB's being motivated by a sense of panic into making some really dumb moves. If TPTB had just remained calm and stayed the old course, the audiences would have returned.

[jo.frank88]

I saw on a news website a couple days ago that this week was the 20th anniversary of the OJ mess and I knew someone would bring it up here! haha

I agree with most that the OJ trail played a SMALL role in addition to MANY other things to soaps decline. By 1994 soaps as a whole were already losing the powerhouse ground they held in the 80s, storylines on most soaps were struggling, many more women are working than 10 and 20 years prior, CABLE TV is now very mainstream, which is wasn't 10 and 20 years prior. Yes, OJ did play a role, but IMO it was very small role. I believe Days' ratings even went UP after the OJ trail (mainly due to Marlena's possession storyline).

[ajsp35801]

I used to come home every day from school to watch the full day being replayed on Court TV. It was far better than any soap. And even watching the special, it is still far better than any soap or reality series. Those people involved in the case couldn't have been better if they had been scripted on the page. Just saying...lol After the trial, I still watched Court TV religiously whereas before I didn't realize it existed.

[NothinButAttitude]

So funny that I stumbled across this thread because ID (Investigation Discovery) is playing a documentary on the OJ Simpson case. And I don't think that OJ murdered the soaps (Nicole and Ron, yeah). The networks did with their excessive covering of the case. OJ (IMO) was the beginning of America's obsession with voyeurism and "reality TV." Before, I blamed OJ but nowadays I blame the networks for the collapse of good content TV.