Ratings From the 90's

[beebs]

Season vs. season update:

1. Y&R 8.0 (-0.1) 2. GH 7.0 (-0.5) 3. AMC 6.3 (-0.3) 4. OLTL 6.0 (-0.9) 5. ATWT 5.8 (-0.5) 6. B&B 5.7 (-0.1) 7. DAYS 5.4 (-0.8) 8. GL 5.3 (-0.7) 9. AW 3.9 (-0.6) 10. SB 3.5 (-0.7) 11. LOV 3.3 (-0.2) 12. GEN 2.5 (+0.1)

 

Let's just be clear: this season was one of unequivocal collapse for nearly every show. The only soap to gain viewers is Generations (which, to @Khan's point, did break 3.0 a handful of times, once being its premiere week...barely). I do feel like the show was starting to build an audience during 1990, but this was just a rough year to launch a soap, and it never stood a chance under these circumstances. A slight ratings dip in the fall of 1990 sealed the deal, and by early 1991, GEN was done.

LOV held surprisingly steady during 1990. Can't recall what was happening on that show at the time, but apparently the viewers...didn't hate it as much as most other shows? AMC strengthening under Agnes Nixon's pen, though still unable to prevent some bleeding of viewers. Obviously Y&R and B&B had extremely strong years, nearly holding onto all of their previous season's audience. Can't underestimate Andrea Evans' departure on OLTL. That is one hell of a drop in one year, and worse is to come.

[kalbir]

@beebs 1989/90 was the second season in a row Days had a huge drop. 1987/88 was 7.0, 1988/89 was 6.2, 1989/90 was 5.4. The supercouple era is ending with a whimper it seems.

Edited November 23, 2023 by kalbir

[JAS0N47]

Thanks. We had a good run of "thumbs up" all correct. Was hoping that would continue. I will keep a note of these and check on them at some point to see if I mistyped something.

[JAS0N47]

I didn't miss anything, but it looks like the 1/22/91 GL "breakout" episode would most likely have been re-aired the following day. On 1/22/91, GL only aired for 22 minutes (3-314 & 321-329PM). My guess is they re-aired it the next day (and even then there were a lot of preemptions). On 1/23/91, it only aired from 339-4PM (21 minutes), so actually the second half of the 1/22/91 episode that didn't air anywhere.

 

So I would say 1/22/91 is the likely full preemption.

[beebs]

to a great degree, yes. Though I've also keeping track of the summer periods (the period after Nielsen declares the season "over"). I suspect DAYS had a decent summer 1990 thanks to the Cruise Of Deception, which sort of....mitigated their decline for that period. But I would have to agree, two years of steady HUGE declines is shocking, really.

[BoldRestless]

This could be it. This partial post suggests it was preempted on 1/22/91! 

https://groups.google.com/g/rec.arts.tv.soaps/c/VgXXjAoyHbI/m/GHdQ_WfQQNQJ

[TEdgeofNight]

The information that I have shows GL airing the first half of GL on 1/21 and then re-airing that same episode the next day on 1/22. As you stated, there were preemptions on both days so between those 2 days, they aired the 1/21 episode. 

[kalbir]

Deidre Hall and James Reilly cannot get to Days fast enough.

[BoldRestless]

Perfect! Thanks so much!

[kalbir]

@beebs I took your 1987/88, 1988/89, 1989/90 season end ratings and calculated the net differential for the 11 shows that were on all three seasons and they rank as follows

B&B +0.4

Y&R +0.1

General Hospital -0.7

As the World Turns -0.7

Guiding Light -0.7

Loving -0.7

All My Children -1.0

Another World -1.1

Santa Barbara -1.1

One Life to Live -1.4

Days -1.6

B&B showed growth and Y&R was stable. The rest dropped off.

[beebs]

Great work. And what's especially jarring is that all of GL's loss is from 1989-90. Most of ATWT's as well. All in all, CBS soaps' ratings really held up well during the late 80s, and it kinda surprising that GL would post such losses during what was, by all accounts, a very good year for the show, creatively.

NBC really lost its groove fast, losing by far the most, in general and relatively speaking. Unfortunately, shifting trends and circumstances kinda doomed them, after being surprisingly consistent during the mid-80s.

 

Loving's losses don't look so bad, until you realize they had a lot fewer viewers to lose.

Edited November 23, 2023 by beebs

[Khan]

I wonder if that could be attributed at least in part to TPTB's decision to streamline the cast, eliminating actors such as Peter Bergman (Cliff), Debbi Morgan (Angie), Robert Gentry (Ross), etc.  I could be conflating all the actor exits - I know that Kathleen Noone (Ellen) and Mark LaMura (Mark) left prior; Maurice Benard (Nico), Rosa Nevin (Cecily) and Lauren Holly (Julie) left around the same time as others; and Candace Earley (Donna), Richard Van Vleet (Chuck), Vasili Bogazianos (Benny) and Matthew Cowles (Billy Clyde) maybe left later (followed by Michael E. Knight (Tad))? - but it seems like every ten years or so, AMC would experience some sort of cast purge/"reset"; and this one in particular might have been hard for some fans to take.

God bless S. Michael Schnessel, because I truly believe he was a wonderful writer for OLTL, but by 1990, I think the man was burning out as the show's HW.  No doubt, Paul Rauch kept pressuring him to come up with ever bigger ideas, but the bigger the ideas became, the more they started to weigh down the show.  Andrea Evans' departure really showed the network just how much the show was suffering creatively.

Chances were, if you weren't a LOVING fan by 1990, you weren't ever going to be one; and if you were, then you were in it for the long haul.  Ergo, it's those diehard fans who would stick with the show until the bitter end that probably explains why their loss in 1990 was minimal.

It ended for two reasons: 1) fans had become hip to DAYS' game, so that when you, as the viewer, saw two characters in a scene together for the first time, you knew what was coming; and 2) Al Rabin and his team appeared to have lost their "touch" in knowing which characters to pair together.  The "misses" were starting to outnumber the "hits."  (Shane/Kayla, anyone?). 

Jack/Jennifer and Roman/Isabella were the biggest successes from that period, of course.  Justin/Adrienne were successful, too, although I think many saw how limited THEY were.  Bo/Carly might have been bigger, had they not come at a point when the entire formula was getting tired and needed to be phased out.  Aside from those pairings, however, and maybe Frankie/Eve, I'm hard pressed to name any couples from that pre-Reilly period that had even a little bit of staying power.

Plus, it cannot be overstated how much Leah Laiman's exit as HW hurt the show.  I know she has her detractors - and I'm not putting her in the same category as Bill Bell, or even Pat Falken Smith - but she knew DAYS.  She knew what worked on that show, and what didn't; and even after TPTB canned her successor, Anne Howard Bailey, and promoted Richard J. Allen and Anne Schoettle, two writers who'd worked under Laiman, the show still wasn't what it'd been with her in that seat.

 

[JoeCool]

Agnes Nixon definitely did a reset in 1989/90. Peter Bergman left for Restless. Debbi Morgan was not happy that Angie and Cliff did not continue and said in an interview she was treated like a second class citizen at AMC because of her color which was untrue and those comments upset Agnes Nixon and prompted a public reply and rebuke from Agnes. Debbi Morgan was shown the door shortly thereafter. Agnes did a purge of the rest. Agnes did that when she took over AW in the 60s. Most of these AMC characters were on the periphery by this time and it was easier for Agnes to create new characters and enhance major storylines. Essentially, Agnes Nixon did what Bill Bell did for Restless when he shifted from the Brooks family to the Newmans and Abbots in the early 80s.

Edited November 23, 2023 by JoeCool

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 9/17/90-9/21/90 & 9/24/90-9/28/90:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 10/1/90-10/5/90 & 10/8/90-10/12/90:

Edited December 29, 2023 by JAS0N47

[BoldRestless]

Happy Thanksgiving! Almost another perfect one... 

10/1/90-10/5/90:
AMC - You have 5.8, SOW has 5.3