Which soap won't survive by 2025?

[asafi]

My bet is Days of our lives. just isn't the same anymore. 

[Soap-princess]

It’s 2021, so I can see nearly all of them

gone by then. Y&R and Bold may get another renewal, but I don’t expect soaps to be a thing on daytime later this decade. 

[ccroom50]

General Hospital(GH): Will Be Gone By Or Before 2025 because The Ratings Are Still In The Toilet, The Show Treats The Legacy and Veteran Characters Like Trash To Be Thrown Out, Discarded, Forgotten About and Never Ever Been Seen Or Heard Heard From Forever, The Pacing Is Atrocious, The Show Is All Over The Place, TPTP won't Get Rid Of 75% To 90% Of The Overly Combustible Cast That Is Not Doing Anything, Just There With No Purpose and A Lot Of Those Pointless and Useless Characters No Gives A Flying Flip About, Extremely and Severely Crazy, Psychotic and Homicidal Show, The Show Severely Drags Out Storylines To The Point Way Too Long Until TPTP Finally Resolves Those Storylines That Ends Of Anti-Climatic No One Cares, TPTB Keeps Adding Way To Many People On The Show In Which Hurts The Overall Quality, Quantity, Standards, Ratings and Demographic Ages Ratings Of The Show, The Show Glorifies, Glamourizes, Exploits All The Violence, Crimes and Mob Lifestyles On The Show, Fans/TV Viewers Still In The Comment Sections Of Soap Opera Websites, On Soap Opera Message Boards, On All Of Social Medias, On The Comment Sections Of YouTube, In Soap Opera Magazines Still Complains About Everything About The Show, TPTP Exploiting The Fans/TV Viewers Wars On All Social Medias That Further Obliterates The Show, TPTB Won't Severely Punish Or Fire Actors/Actresses If They Don't Refuses To Do Their Jobs and Act and Perform On The Show and Not Dictate What They Say In Scripts and Who Their Storylines Turn Out and Basically Control The and He In Charge Of The Show Bossing Actors/Actresses Around For The Hell Of It and Stay In Their Lanes and Be Actors/Actresses On The Show and Not Tell TPTB What To Do and How To Do Their Jobs?, Those Are Some Of The Reasons That General Hospital(GH)Will Be Gone Before Or Around 2025!!

[mikelyons]

Considering how hard it is for networks to successfully replace a soap, they'll leave them where they are. It was once said that once a soap falls below a 1.0 rating, it's out the door. Well, they continue to outperform most of their daytime compatriots, so as long as they make more money in ad revenue than their licensing fee, the four remaining soaps will stay on the air. It's too risky to replace Y&R or DAYS with a "celebrity" talk show or lame game show. They have a reliable audience in an age of deep fractures. Do whatever you can to keep it.

[Faulkner]

This. Technology is moving so quickly that it’s hard to know what the media ecosystem will look like in 5-10 years, and certainly a lot of soaps’ core audience is literally dying off, but they’ll be on the air as long as the networks are around IMO. 

[dragonflies]

All but YR and BB

and those 2 I can see moving solely to Paramount Plus instead of on CBS

[te.]

Add that live ratings has been dropping drastically for the past five or so years for tv overall. The one thing soaps have on shows like The Talk is that I assume people are more likely to stream them. I've long assumed that DAYS is only kept on the air because it does well on the NBC app/now Peacock.

[BoldRestless]

 

I agree. It all seems to be on auto pilot now. In the 90s and 2000s we saw the shows fighting hard for ratings with flashy stories like the clones. There were live episodes, musical episodes, Port Charles turning into a supernatural show with telenovela-style arcs. Even into the 2010s we still saw a lot of stunt casting of popular vets from other networks. Now it's like they're not even trying anymore. I think there is this acceptance that they will get renewed if they maintain X rating and keep to Y budget. There will not be writers and producers fighting for some money to do a big "Out of the Ashes" type story to boost ratings. They probably have a formula where they figure they will lose a certain percentage of viewers each year and adjust the budget downward accordingly.  You don't even see stories anymore about actors threatening to walk because their guarantee or salary is being cut. They all know where it's heading. Now it's about creative budgeting, figuring out how to recycle sets, add more clip shows, adding more dark weeks. What remains to be seen is the effect of COVID which hurt the ratings while increasing costs. They might be able to absorb it by cutting in other ways. 

[KirkB]

Corday wants to make it 60 which would be 2025, I see DAYS trying to get there and then be canceled. 

[KMan101]

I could see DAYS easily going online. It's popular on streaming. But who knows where we will be by 2025 LOL

[dragonflies]

Days could solely stream on Peacock and I think it would do well. 

 

I think GH is done in the next few years. 

[Bill Bauer]

No soap will beat Guiding Light's 72-year run. Maybe The Archers. But, of the shows still on the air, the last one I'd like to see still standing would be Days. Even if I can't personally stomach it currently. It's a sentimental favourite. 

[wingwalker]

When we lost GL, ATWT, AMC and OLTL in quick succession I didn't think any of them would still be on in 2021 except for maybe B&B.   I can see them all moving to solely streaming. I've felt for a while now that if given the proper chance, soaps as a genre could thrive on streaming.  Steaming's main business model is to gain and keep subscribers, to do that you need a steady stream of content. Few types of shows do that better than soaps. 

 

 

 

 

[mikelyons]

I think the cancelation of AMC and OLTL in 2011-12 along with the OPRAH going off the air decimated ABC's daytime line-up. ABC hasn't recovered. I do believe that NBC and CBS halted whatever plans they may have had to get rid of their remaining soaps after seeing three legacy shows lost in the span of a few months. At this point, it's "cheaper to keep her". 

From the Sony leak, it seems that Y&R and DAYS' numbers go up by 50% or more when they factored in online streaming, SoapNet viewings, iTunes downloads, and the like. The shows are probably healthier and more profitable than anyone would care to admit. I don't see these four shows going solely to streaming - the networks will not want to give that time back to their affiliates and lose out completely - but they will be anchors in their streaming future.

[lucaslesann23]

How does GH do on hulu?