Why are soap fans so averse to online streaming?

[Chris B]

After the success of these repeats I’m hoping CBS All Access uploads some of the early years of Y&R and B&B. I read that they’re going to transform into a bigger platform now that they’ve Merged with Viacom again and pull content from their other networks to create a streaming service more on par with Netflix and Hulu. I’d hope more soaps would be part of that. 
 

With Peacock, I’m holding out hope for Passions in addition to classic DAYS. With HBOMAX we have about two weeks and we’ll know if they’ll include Dallas, Knots Landing and Falcon Crest. I’m really hopeful for that Service having a broad variety of things. I’m really excited about the partnership with TCM for classic films. If they have a good collection of classic flims and shows I would be sold. 

[Soapsuds]

I'd love to see an unedited Dallas on HD. The edited and sometimes poor episodes on dvd was disappointing.

 

Season 5 and beyond for FC would be great.

 

KL too in all seasons in HD.

Edited May 17, 2020 by Soapsuds

[DramatistDreamer]

The post I made earlier should have been posted here.

(Seriously though, my inbox is being inundated with these reports.)

Lately, I have been receiving a lot of reports in my inbox (most of which I have yet to read) concerning the diminishing ratings and returns of network television and the mushrooming opportunities in streaming television, particularly AVOD and FAST television streaming, FAST is particularly appealing to advertisers these days as it is Free Ad-Enabled Streaming Television. Although I didn't know it at the time, FAST is basically what I predicted would hold a great deal of appeal to advertisers. I think I posted as much in another thread.

 

Should I move this post to that thread? (Can I even find that thread?)

[Planet Soap]

IMO the reason soap fans are so hesitant towards streaming is that soaps, much like daytime television, was one if the ultimate forms of appointment viewing. There's a certain comfort in knowing that every day at 4 PM Oprah is going to be on, or you can see Erica and Jackson in some form of drama at 1 PM.

With streaming ,when you have an entire library at your disposal anytime you want, you lose some of that anticipation magic. As much as I love watching all episodes of soaps on YouTube, and watching TV shows on streaming, there's some excitement in knowing that I have to wait every Wednesday night to catch a new episode of the Chicago dramas or every Thursday to see Shonda's shows.

I would like to see all libraries of soaps be available on streaming in good quality since they hardly are ever rebroadcast.

 

 

[Faulkner]

Habit is really the blessing and the curse of daytime viewership. I miss having GL or AW on as an alternative if I got bored with GH in the afternoon. It just felt like a date. While streaming is great, everything just feels like content in the streaming universe. Like you say, some of that magic has been lost. Now I know that a lot of streamers have started releasing an episode a week (I love watching new episodes of Great British Bakeoff on Friday nights after they’re released on Netflix, when the show’s in season. And Disney+ fans have responded well to its schedules.) But there’s something of a living, breathing parallel universe that soaps represented in their heyday, and you had your daily-appointment window into it. And it’s not the same.

Edited February 4, 2022 by Faulkner

[DramatistDreamer]

Content has been leaving daytime soaps behind and network ratings alone have been a diminishing prospect over the past decade. Unless something radically different happens, those trends are expected to continue.

Hardcore daytime soap fans may expect to view their soaps in the traditional way, but the ratings say otherwise.  Time shifting viewerd have been a factor since the VCR became more affordable to the average consumer. In the 1980s, before I even hit puberty, I learned how to program a VCR, so that my Mom could watch her soaps after she came home from work in the late afternoon/Earl evening.  I suspect that we weren't the only household doing this.

If only the production companies for daytime soaps had picked up on this and lobbied for a way to count time shifted viewers earlier, daytime might have been regarded differently, and marketed to advertisers differently, as an evolving form of entertainment, instead of a fading one.

The more I read these reports and see how some companies nare leveraging this medium as it evolves, the more I actually think, in clinging so steadfastly to old ways and habits, daytime soaps have done themselves a grave disservice.

 

What's this got to do with the way viewers prefer to watch their soaps, you may ask? 

Habits can be and are cultivated. New habits, which can seem strange at first, become normalized. There was a time when it would have been considered absurd for strangers who have never met in person to have discussions online, let alone about soaps but it has happened, because people had the foresight to know that there would be interest and many of us are glad.

[allmc2008]

When have they been adverse to streaming aside from a decade ago when Prospect Park did their thing.

[Vee]

Yeah, but I don't think there's a viable alternative at present. If soaps want to survive, in the US at least, it'll have to become about timed drops, preferably daily and probably parceled out within a few months at a time, in seasonal arc storytelling. That still gives you a facsimile of the daily living, universal experience. And I don't know that we'll ever even get that.

[DramatistDreamer]

In regards to whether daytime soap fans (I am specifically talking about them), every year that the Daytime Emmy awards were streamed, there was a chorus of fans who complained endlessly that they wanted to watch their soaps and all things soap related on their TV, as always. That is what nudged me to start this topic in the first place.

Anyone who is confused by this topic, I would encourage to be back in this thread and read the original premise and some of the comments.

[Faulkner]

That “daytime soap experience” is completely lost to time and changes in technology, and I’m not sure there’s a huge groundswell to create an equivalent that would placate those nostalgic soap fans, especially with all of the variety we currently have on streaming and the fact that most of us are just *old* now. I think DAYS has a solid opportunity to find an off-ramp on Peacock, and it feels like they’re prepared for it, even beyond the spin-offs. But a move to streaming might  come with some changes that’ll unnerve a lot of longtime fans. They’ll have to suck it up if they want their soap to survive, but the flip side of that is DAYS on streaming might need more adaptable fans to survive as a day-in, day-out soap. (OT: I’m curious about Peacock’s future and if Comcast will soon acquire/merge with another company to shore up its library and make it more broadly attractive, aside from seasonal spikes from the Olympics and other sporting content. There’s still not a bunch of Peacock “must-watches,” even as certain shows get critics on board. Maybe DAYS could be the start of that? I dunno.)

Edited February 8, 2022 by Faulkner

[AmandainNC28655]

Honestly, I am not averse to it.  We recently just cut the Cord with Cable and got Roku for Christmas and do Hulu Live, Netflix, Peacock, Paramount, etc.  I did notice that Paramount does offer old episodes of B&B and I would love to see them offer ATWT, GL, Capitol.  Since Hulu is partly owned by Disney/ABC and ABC still has the rights to AMC and OLTL, I do think that would be the perfect platform to release those shows to soap fans, along with Ryan's Hope and/or Loving and The City.  I know I would watch during the daytime hours when I am off of work if they made these available.

[Faulkner]

I hope we see way more of that. It’d be sad if the P&G soaps were a lost cause.

[DramatistDreamer]

Maybe this doesn't belong in this thread but reading this article, I couldn't help but think that the 18-45 female viewer that Netflix is courting with these Bridgerton-themed events are the demographics that daytime soaps would have courted once upon a time. Bizarre, some might say, but an attempt to do something out of the box.

[Spoon]

You can have soaps on streaming platforms but umless they commit to a 4-5 episode a week format then it's not a daytime soap just another online drama. 

Frankly I don't think younger audiences could handle the quantity of daytime as they focus on quality and have shorter attention spans.  I feel the future should be to spin-off new weekly shows off of  General Hospital and other ABC Intellectual property that could attract new audiences with 10-20 episode seasons.

[DramatistDreamer]

That's a point we've definitely been discussing on this board over the years.

What I meant was that I think it's interesting how Netflix and Bridgerton is making a push to cater to this particular demographic outside of the streaming platform, IRL events similar to how ComicCon caters to a certain consumer. It was even more interesting that their argument seems to be that they believe that this particular demo (women 18-45) is virtually ignored in this space.