When Did Each Soap Become a Hit

[AbcNbc247]

It was kept like a regular soap episode, just going back and forth between Bay City and Houston. 

[Broderick]

Did they write "Houston" across the screen for the Houston scenes, and "Bay City" for the Midwestern scenes, or was the audience able to tell (by the cowboy hats, lol) which scenes were in the South?  

[Contessa Donatella]

Just to start out with the right i dotted, it was not the sponsors, specifically not the producers, P&G who were in favor of the expansions. It was the networks, specifically first NBC, who were all about expanding from half hour to an hour, and then, in the case of NBC & AW, on to try 90 minutes.  Fred Silverman was the first one pushing the idea. Paul Rauch had been a company man, working for a network, who had crossed over to become EP at AW, working for P&G but still closely affiliated with the network. He was still essentially a company man. He was the second one pushing the idea. And, it was a big push! I learned that it was this difference, that NBC was the initiator from two sources. First, a book put out in 2020 by Elana Devine HER STORIES. It does not cover the 90 minute expansion but it is very detailed about the initial expansion from 30 minutes to an hour. Then, in a 2006 audio only interview between someone from WOST (org) & Pete Lemay. WOST stood for World of Soap Themes & used to be a rich resource. Pete was HW of AW & this guy caught him at an Awards ceremony & got him on tape. It's up on YT. Pete named Fred Silverman.  And, the most telling reason that it was not a temp thing to launch TEXAS, is that Pete Lemay would not have quit if it was just a temp thing.

"A half-hour seemed the ideal length for serials, but once the hour was tried with AW, the networks were impressed that the ad revenue would be greater if they simply expanded their most popular shows. An understandable notion, but it is not working." - Pete Lemay

"At NBC programmers admitted that they went to a 90-minute show 'because they couldn't come up with a better idea.'"

Edited June 7, 2022 by Tonksadora
Add 2 quotes.

[Paul Raven]

Expanding The Doctors would have been a better idea.

Just recently GH had done just that and immediately improved ratings. Soaps are always imitating so why not follow ABC's lead?

Maybe one of the problems was finding studio space in New York. The Doctors was squeezed into a tiny studio at Rockefeller Center and it would be physically impossible to accomodate extra sets etc.

Edited June 7, 2022 by Paul Raven

[AbcNbc247]

They wrote it across the screen 

[Broderick]

Thanks for all the info, everyone!   

(I'd just always assumed P&G had instituted the 1-hour format -- and then the 90 minutes -- as a method of increasing their daytime programming hours without the additional overhead of creating several new shows. I see that ain't the case.)   

[Contessa Donatella]

I am sorely tempted to start a whole new topic: What Would Have Been Better Than The 90 Minute AW? because frankly almost anything would've been better! Smart money, expanding The Doctors to an hour would have been better. In extremis, doing nothing would have been better! Creating a new half hour soap might have been better. Investing in a soap writer's workshop might have been better. Innovating some way to improve on NY studio space & sets would have been better! Name a problem & a possible solution & there you have a "better", etc. It's just a shame that no one would listen to the people who saw this up front.

[Broderick]

In most instances, the goal is to make the televised product more manageable, containable, and streamlined.  In daytime, the goal in the 1970s seemed to be making the product completely bloated and unwieldy.  

[Paul Raven]

Among other issues,the 90 min AW started a half hour earlier, changing the timeslot AW had held since its debut.

So viewers again had to make a choice if they had previously watched CBS or ABC  at 2.30 to stick with that or  now switch over to AW. I'm sure a lot of viewers just tuned in at 3, figuring they could catch up over the next hour.

It really was bone headed move on so many levels.

[Contessa Donatella]

Yes! That's the term I've been searching for. I just repeat to myself the phrase that they couldn't think of anything thing else to try. Bone headed move!

[Chris B]

I enjoyed early Texas once I could figure out what was going on. It's a shame it didn't work out, which I blame on them starting the show on AW. If you didn't watch AW (like me), it was incredibly confusing trying to figure out what was going on since all the storylines were in progress. 

 

The 90 minute experiment with AW was pretty insane. As many have said, expanding The Doctors could've been smart or just creating a new half hour soap. NBC was a nightmare when it came to their soaps. I do think Return To Peyton Place could've become a hit had it been given another year. Ratings were stable and from what I've read, the stories really seemed to improve towards the end.