Looking back...Primetime Ratings from the 80's

[soapfan770]

I can definitely see that airing the same week as The Love Boat colliding with an iceberg and sinking while crossing the North Atlantic on the Titanic anniversary with a “Who lives and dies?!” Promo next to Mr Belvedere being blackmailed over his wanted fugitive status back in the UK

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Agree with you both. I am also going assume that while Hotel may had some big numbers the first 2 seasons BUT the demographics weren’t great. Reason I say this is I distinctly remember my parents watching St Elsewhere and/or The Equalizer after Dynasty. 
 

I still don’t get Hotel’s designation as a primetime soap opera either lol.

ABC should have aired Paper Dolls in the 10/9 slot on Wednesdays in the fall of 1984 to give that show some more legs. 
 

Obviously ABC was eyeing a double bill night in the same vein as Dallas & Falcon Crest and that might have worked better than leaving Paper Dolls to the wolves in an untested timeslot.

Edited 4 hours ago by soapfan770

[kalbir]

Aaron Spelling still had clout with ABC in Fall 1984, as I think they knew he was going to pull out all the stops for Dynasty to get to #1, which he did. That's probably why ABC kept Hotel as Dynasty lead out.

Fall 1985 with the sale to Capital Cities and Brandon Stoddard arrival, Aaron Spelling would lose his clout with ABC.

[Paul Raven]

And maybe Hotel could have been placed at 9pm Tues instead of Paper Dolls. Not that I thing it was a surefire thing but at least viewers were familiar with the show and it might have done better than PD. ABC's line up was pretty threadbare at that point.

And with a big guest star to launch the season - Elizabeth Taylor- the numbers would have been there initially.