Liza was just called "a guiding light" for WRCW and replied saying something like "but no to guiding light."
One of my fave soap critics, John Kelly Genovese, and his August 8, 1989, SOD review of All My Children.
As everyone here knows AMC is my top soap obsession and 1989 is a very interesting year. The 1980s were probably AMC's "Imperial Phase" (to steal the term used for recording artists to signify their time of both peak popularity AND peak creative heights) but by 1987 AMC's ratings were dipping (of course now they still seem back but many weeks it would fall to fourth place, something that was unheard of at the end of the 70s and the first half of the 80s.) And I think there was some feeling that Lorraine Broderick (with and without Wisner Washam) maybe needed fresh blood in the writing room. This of course was not helped by the nearly 6 month WGA strike in 1988...
Similarly I feel ABC Daytime (still pretty creatively aware about their soaps) felt the EP situation wasn't ideal. Agnes Nixon had always been EP (with several co-EPs) on the show up until 1982, and then Jacqueline Babbin brilliantly led the soap until late 1986. When she chose to leave the show, Jorn Winther (who had been the last co-EP with Agnes Nixon) came in but lasted less than a year, and then Stephen Schenkel had a nearly 2 year run, but I get the sense never really was the right fit--he left citing illness. (Schenkel apparently originally had a co-creator and creative consultant credit on Ryan's Hope and then was a producer, not EP, on Another World.)
So 1989 was a bit of a mini shakeup for AMC, at least I think so although I never really have seen this talked about (probably because AMC in 1988, despite the writer strike, was still doing... OK.)
In March 1989 ABC placed Felicia Minei Behr as EP. She had just been the final EP of Ryan's Hope last year (I'd be curious to hear how people thought she did there?) but also had a huge history with AMC and was still very close with Agnes Nixon--still in her 20s she was associate producer for AMC from its launch in 1970 until 1975. So was a good fit, even if ABC told her to "update--tastefully" AMC's aesthetics and tone.
The day that FMB got her first on-screen credit, March 20 1989, AMC also had a new HW, Margaret DePriest (Lorraine Broderick and Wisner Washam remained as associate head writers.) DePriest is an interesting choice for AMC. DePriest had been writing soaps ever since a 1960s stint co-headwriting Edge Of Night and then co-creating the fascinating lost soap 1969's Where the Heart Is (which was criticized for being hyper sexual for the time and sensationalist.) In the 1980s she was known for working at more over the top soaps (at least more than the relatively grounded AMC) like GH (co-HW for 1980-81 with Pat Falken Smith,) and Days of Our Lives where I believe she was largely responsible for soap opera's first serial killer storyline (she also had wrote AW in 86-88.) So hiring her for AMC (which I believe was ABC's decision not FMB's) was obviously meant to move the show a bit more into that direction (this would not be the last time ABC wanted AMC to be a bit more like Days of Our Lives...)
However, I think DePriest's writing for AMC in 1989 was largely successful. The show did move faster, and did get a bit more mean spirited (more catfights, etc) but probably thanks to FMB's background with the show and Broderick and Washam (and Nixon herself) still being around, it didn't feel too off from classic AMC.)
So, though Gervase doesn't mention these changes specifically, it's interesting to read what good shape he found AMC in Summer 1989. And ratings did go up.
That said I am not sure if DePriest was always meant to be a temporary fuel injection (in 1990 she moved to One Life to Live where she... didn't have much success.) But regardless in December 1989, just in time for AMC's 20th anniversary, and by the time she officially left as HW (though they created the "Executive HW" title for her...) in 1992 AMC was firmly the number 2 soap
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