Ratings From the 90's

[Paul Raven]

Only NBC ever tried to debut a 60 min soap and each of the 4 attempts failed.

However, launching a 30 min show was no guarantee of success either see Loving, Pt Charles, The City , Generations etc

Only B&B survived.

The whole premise of Texas was flawed. The setting gave it a poor man's Dallas feel and anyone tempted to watch would be major dissapointed if they were expecting any of the flavor of Dallas.

Taking away Iris from an already flailing AW and then changing the character was also a bad move for both shows.

Seeing how the Corringtons were New Orleans based and had already incorporated that flavor into SFT, why not launch a new 30 min soap 'Orleans' based there?

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by Paul Raven

[Khan]

I know the Christmas episode from that year credits her and JER as HW's.

[Contessa Donatella]

I think it gives us insight into how these execs minds worked at that time, in that place. We now know from the Beverlee McKinsey Canadian "City Lights" interview that TPTB decided that they wanted to spin-off the character of Iris to a new soap. They did not even discuss this with McKinsey until they were very very very far along in development. That seems hard to believe but that was the way it happened. They inadvertently gave her much more negotiating power than she would have had in usual negotiations. By the time they brought her into the loop they HAD to have her do this thing. And, in the meantime they had also conceived of trying to take advantage of the popularity of DALLAS. And that in a nutshell is how TEXAS came to be. 

AW would have been better off with Iris at home there. Vivien, too. 

McKinsey would have been better off with Iris still on AW. 

The brand new writers for TEXAS were hired & had nothing to do so they put them to work writing for AW for awhile. However, it does not seem that very much was learned about who Iris was & what she was like. 

 

Edited November 26, 2023 by Donna L. Bridges

[Khan]

I agree.  Even a brand-new, thirty-minute soap can be a crap shoot.  I'd argue, however, that many of the later ones failed for very specific reasons.

LOVING failed, for instance, because it never had a strong enough identity or theme.

TC failed, because, even though it had MORE of an identity than LOVING, it still was a spin-off of a failed soap opera, and it didn't have a strong story to help launch it either.  (Morgan Fairchild and her boots arriving by helicopter is a great scene, but it's not a story.)

Both CAPITOL and GENERATIONS were well-structured, but their executions were all wrong.  Neither had good writing when they started.  (CAPITOL, however, did get better as time went on.  GENERATIONS, on the other hand, never got the chance.)

And PC, IMO, never got out from under GH's shadow, which is ironic, because it probably was more hospital-centric than GH had been in years.  Even when it became DARK SHADOWS: THE NEW BREED, it still felt to me like GH2.

B&B, on the other hand, survived, not just because of Bill Bell's skills as a storyteller, but also because it had a real, discernible theme: a family drama set against the backdrop of the fashion industry in L.A.*  B&B experienced some growing pains, of course, but I think you could see the potential from the start.  (Potential that, I'm sad to say, Bradley has squandered.)

You can blame NBC Daytime for TEXAS being an inferior version of DALLAS.  The Corringtons and Paul Rauch's original concept was for a soap set in the antebellum South, but NBCD wanted something that was more in line with DALLAS, which had become a massive hit.  Personally, I think the Corrington's original idea sounds intriguing, but I don't know how sustainable it'd have been as an ongoing, daily serial.

 

(*I think it would've made more sense to set it in NYC, the home of "Fashion Week," but whatever.)

Edited November 26, 2023 by Khan

[BoldRestless]

[kalbir]

Thanks Khan. So it was sometime in January 1991 that the HW credit changed from Pamela Long to Nancy Curlee.

[Contessa Donatella]

FWIW, I have it in notes that she began as HW in 1990 & cont'd through 1994. Of course it could be a discrepancy over nothing more than script dates & air dates. If the holiday show's credits show Pam Long, that was written in November, likely. Just a thought. 

Wendy Riche's concept was literally to begin & end the day with the hospital. She was having breakfast with Pat Fili Krushel & suggested either bookending or bracketing (I forget which word) with the hospital's West Wing full of interns. 

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 12/10/90-12/14/90 & 12/17/90-12/21/90:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 12/24/90-12/28/90 & 12/31/90-1/4/91:

[kalbir]

Y&R December 12, 1990 Heather Tom debut.

Other big events on Y&R: Nikki begins mixing painkillers and alcohol. Lauren prepares to divorce Scott. Cassandra tricks Brad into marriage.

Y&R December 24, 1990 was rebroadcast on December 25, 2000.

What to watch for in 1991

Generations ends.

Big changes at Guiding Light: HW change from Pamela Long to Nancy Curlee, a slight cast purge, EP change from Robert Calhoun to JFP, the first Friend of Jill incident.

Deidre Hall returns to Days.

Gloria Monty returns to General Hospital.

Edited November 27, 2023 by kalbir

[Contessa Donatella]

Ha! People have scoffed at me for saying she wastes no time, hits the ground running & does something to put her mark on the place on whatever she considers her first workday! The lady knows what she's doing putting the fear of god in folks upfront. Later on, she can, and does, show a human side. 

[BoldRestless]

Another !

[Soapsuds]

ATWT

 

[Franko]

She was actually already back. Until I saw the Classic Soap Opera Digest News Tumblr, I didn't know this, but Gloria's first day was Monday, Dec. 3, 1990.

That being said, we can think of February 1991 as the launch of the "new" era, with the introduction of the Eckerts and some of the largest activity of the first wave of cast departures.

Edited November 27, 2023 by Franko

[Paul Raven]

I don't want to clutter up this thread so I am posting an article about Gloria Monty's 1991 return to GH in the classic GH thread.

[JAS0N47]

FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 1/7/91-1/11/91 & 1/14/91-1/18/91:

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FROM THE VAULT: WEEKLY DAYTIME NIELSEN RATINGS: WEEKS OF 1/21/91-1/25/91 & 1/28/91-2/1/91:

 

Due to the war, only 71 affiliates aired the full final episode of Generations.

Edited November 27, 2023 by JAS0N47