When Did Each Soap Become a Hit

[Contessa Donatella]

And, off to the side is the monstrous failure that was AW going to 90 minutes. After it the NBC programmers "admitted" that they tried it BECAUSE THEY COULDN'T THINK OF ANYTHING ELSE TO TRY.

opportunists with tinker toys

[watson71]

Fred Silverman did not have a successful run at NBC like he did at CBS and ABC.  Along with the programmers at NBC, he did three things that would cause Another World to never be a top rated soap the rest of the time it was on the air (19 years):

1. AW was already starting to lose viewers to ABC before NBC went ahead with the 90 minute expansion in 1979.

2. The 90 minute expansion would cause AW to move out of the 3:00 PM timeslot where it had aired for the first 15 years of the program's success.  Now, AW began at 2:30 PM.

3.  Once, NBC and P&G saw that the 90 minutes AW was not working, they considered the antebellum concept called Reunion.  This morphed into the Dallas "clone" Texas, moving Berverlee McKinsey's Iris from Another World to Texas.  They essentially removed one of AW's biggest stars from the show.  NBC also moved AW to the 2:00 PM timeslot, giving Texas the 3:00 timeslot against General Hospital and Guiding Light.  Texas should have been given the 2:00 timeslot between Days and AW when it made its debut and AW returned to the 3:00 PM timeslot. 

These moves would cause a general collapse of NBC daytime that would result in the cancellation of both The Doctors and the short lived Texas.  Days and AW would start to show signs of getting it together in 1983- with Days faring better than AW.

[Contessa Donatella]

And, if I might add one little bit, the NBC affiliates HATED the 90 minute show. And, they got it into their heads that the show had wanted it (Which wasn't true the network & Paul Rauch wanted it. Lemay fought against it tooth & nail & eventually quit over that one issue!) So, the affiliates went from really being fond of AW to actively disliking it. I firmly believe that was the roots of the demise of the show. Here's the part of our program when I bang my head into the wall for a little bit, but don't worry I can do it very quietly.

[Paul Raven]

Silverman came to NBC with huge fanfare and expectations.

He knew he couldn't just makeover the network as an ABC clone so was trying a lot of different things in primetime.

We know NBC had some daytime stuff in development but I'm sure Silverman's ego and his evaluation of the projects meant they had to start from scratch. Silverman had worked for years at CBS daytime so he did have expertise in that area.

I'm sure it would have probably have been a better move to expand The Doctors to an hour from 2-3.

AW would have retained the 3pm slot and not been weakened by the 90 min format. The Doctors would have gotten a much needed shot in the arm with new characters,sets and stories.

 

[Spoon]

Why didn't NBC expand The Doctors to an hour before expanding AW a second time?

[watson71]

I'm not sure of the exact date, but NBC bought ownership of The Doctors from Colgate.  From 1979-82, NBC placed The Doctors in 3 different timeslots.  From March 1979-August 1980 The Doctors moved from its longtime 2:30 start time to 2:00 PM.  From August 1980-March 1982, the show moved to 12:30 PM.  From March-December 1982, the show aired at 12:00 PM when Search for Tomorrow jumped networks.  By March 1982, a lot of NBC affiliates did not ever air The Doctors as part of the lineup.

[Contessa Donatella]

It's frustrating but nothing I've read talks about The Doctors at all! Nothing I've been told either. It's just as if it was ignored.

[Contessa Donatella]

I realize I've already answered this but it was by saying I know nothing which is true but I have a gut feeling about it & that is that Paul Rauch simply would not have it any other way than to do this 90 minute show that he was fixated on for AW & we know from many sources that he was formidable & that he fought people on his own side as fiercely as he did those who opposed him. Lemay had doubts about the hour long show after doing it for awhile. He was like Agnes in that he wrote all of AW just as she wrote all of AMC. (I suspect Bell did, too.) And, before they invented ways to actually do the hour long show they were asking their people to basically work overtime all the time & Lemay was accutely aware of the danger they ran of burn out. Everything would have made so much more sense to bring The Doctors onto the hour expansion but once Rauch had something in his head, there was no turning him. So to my best estimation, the missing why is because Paul Rauch, brilliant though he was at times, was blind to reality in this instance & had no one powerful enough to force him to stop. Maybe that sheds a little light on a frustrating point of history.

[Broderick]

Was Another World's foray into 90 minutes originally intended to be permanent, or was it a temporary situation while the concept of "Texas" was introduced?  

The "brains" behind the expansion seemed to believe daytime audiences were captives, who could watch all day.  I never had a problem sailing into the house to watch 30 minutes of Y&R.  When the show expanded to an hour, that required a certain sacrifice on the audience's part.  Not everyone had an hour to watch TV on a daily basis.  I can't even imagine committing to watch TV for 90 minutes every weekday.  Surely, AW considered this possibility. 

I do recall seeing one isolated episode of AW when it lasted 90 minutes.  It was a strange sight, featuring a lot of unnecessary phone calls, people sitting at their desks clearing away the clutter, opening filing cabinets and putting away documents, just stuff that you normally wouldn't build scenes around.  I suppose perhaps that particular episode had run short on dialogue, and they were just dragging out the office scenes to fill-up the 90 minutes.  But wow, you could easily see it was a bad idea. 

(But the 1970s were an innovative time, and you gotta give credit to the people who came up with these new ideas, even when they failed.)   

[Darn]

I don't understand how anyone thought a movie length episode of television a day was at all sustainable.

[Broderick]

Same here.  If a person were infirm or a shut-in who kept the TV on 24/7, it would probably work out fine.  But for most folks, nope.  I wouldn't think there were millions & millions of viewers who were salivating at the thought of spending 10% of their waking hours on a single television show, five days a week, lol.  

[Contessa Donatella]

It was intended to be permanent.

[Broderick]

 I understand why the sponsors (P&G specifically) thought expanding to an hour was a good idea.  (Cheaper to do a single hour of one program than two unique 30-minute shows.)  But the 90-minute idea -- a lousy one for sure.    

[Spoon]

In theory 90 minutes could work for a soap but you'd need 90 minutes worth of characters and story and not 60 minutes worth stretched out to 90 minutes. 

For instance if you merged y&r with b&b you would just sprinkle in the b&b stuff during the 90 minute run time. 

[Paul Raven]

When Texas got underway still within AW didn't they break the show into 2 45 min chunks with the Texas characters in the second half?

How did that work in practice? Was the second half strictly Texas characters?

Anyway tTexas was a text book example of how NOT to do a spin off.

 

At one point NBC announced a proposed line up of all soaps beginning with The Doctors at 11.30 am and including a new soap in the line up. AW would continue at 90 min.

I think they planned to run David Letterman from 10-11.30.

Of course Letterman tanked as did AW so those plans were scuttled.

I posted that article somewhere back in time-will try to find it.

 

 

Edited June 6, 2022 by Paul Raven