BBC came up with the title (not me).

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20221018-are-soaps-in-danger-of-extinction?ocid=ww.social.link.twitter

Interesting that the BBC devised this article but fails to put that energy into fixing EastEnders, which is appears to be in the crapper (from what I've been reading). 

 

Soaps aren't in danger if they'd actually allow those who are passionate about the genre to run it. At this point, that would be the fans. The genre needs new lifeblood in it for it to continue to live. As I just mentioned in the Emmerdale thread, a lot of the fans on the forums need to be in the writer's room at this point. Most of us can devise stories that need to be told better than the likes of Ron Carlivati, Brad Bell, Josh Griffith, etc. Soaps just need to revert back to simplistic storytelling with purpose. A well-thought out beginning, middle, and end. Shows like Succession, Never Have I Ever, Euphoria, Blood & Water, etc. are practically soaps and are banking big off of telling gritty every day stories. When was the last time a network soap told a story like that? 

 

The model does need to change as 5 days a week is excessive. Put the soaps on a streaming platform and put out all 5 episodes at once, so people can binge those episodes for the week. The network model (IMO) is dead. The target audience that the network wants (18 to 34) are either in class or working. Preferably, I think soaps need to be 3 episodes a week with a break from late December to mid January like the Aussie soaps do. That saves money and gives the actors and crew a break to do other projects during the off-time. 

 

 

A very good read, and I particularly agree with this

Quote

 

But soap storylines have become gradually more sensationalist over the years. Today, a divorce would probably be deemed rather tame, particularly for a box-office Christmas episode, in an era when explosions, shootings, murders and a whole range of dramatic twists are now commonplace. Emmerdale's Christmas special in 1993, where a plane crashed into the fictional village of Beckindale, was a key moment of change. It reset the show, destroying the original village and killing off multiple main characters, and remains the soap's highest-rated episode ever, with 18 million people tuning in, so it clearly worked in the short-term. But over time, the ante has been gradually raised on soaps, and the long-term effect has been corrosive, with no shortage of storylines that are ludicrous at best and damaging at worst.

Looking back to the origin of EastEnders, Cashman says its appeal was grounded in the realism of the characters, who would have "run a mile" rather than been anywhere near many situations we see in soaps today. "The whole thing was character-led and not driven by plot, or story or an imposed set of circumstances. Nothing would have worked if the characters were not believable or recognisable," he says. He remembers showrunner Julia Smith coming into the makeup room and asking for excessive makeup to be removed, because she wanted the actors to resemble an actual working-class community. Everyday people, not melodramatic storylines, were the main draw. "Anyone coming in to work on EastEnders today should have to watch episodes from the first three years," he says. "Because it set the tone by which the notion became gripped."

 

 

I agree with much of this article, especially the quotes from Michael Cashman, but this type of article is 15-20 years out of date. The time of extinction has long passed. Even the mention of Housewives, a franchise that is heading toward its last years, is about a decade old.

Russell Davies basically said a decade  ago that UK soaps were going to die if they didn't make  changes (none of the  changes he suggested were followed, sadly).

I'm surprised they think that Amazon's Lord of the Rings show is all that talked about. Beyond hate channels I never hear any  talk of it. 

Edited October 23, 20223 yr by DRW50

Interesting article but I also think it's late to the game. Yes, soaps as we know them are in danger of extinction & they have been for about a baker's dozen years, already. Whether they will go all the way down & circle the drain & go kaput, is just anyone's guess. The few that are left may eke out meager existences. Or they could reinvent themselves. I don't think anyone has the answer. I think it would be great if they manage somehow to stay the course. They are a singular kind of story-telling. I think that probably the biggest factor not on the side of their winning, is that people don't watch TV together like they once did. So many of us began watching soaps with our mothers, or our grandmothers, or our babysitters, etc. Those opportunities are infrequent now.

When I first started watching soaps regularly 20 years ago, I would have told you that soaps could be saved. Cable, the internet, and a dwindling demographic of stay-at-home moms ate away at the ratings, but numbers weren't all bad. Besides the reality was that ratings were on a decline for most network TV anyway. Things could have been done then to save soaps, but in today's viewing landscape of streaming and "fast tv" soaps in a traditional sense seem to be a thing of the past. An amazing and treasured thing we have all loved at one point, but definitely on life support with an end in sight.  

I don't think 5 days a week is excessive at all, I think it still works, but IMO a lot of the other soaps could benefit from being a half hour instead of an hour

I think soaps are fine a long as networks are invested, it seems like CBS is with YR/Bold, ABC only if they don't find something to replace GH and NBC/Peacock claim to be invested in Days 

16 hours ago, dragonflies said:

I don't think 5 days a week is excessive at all, I think it still works, but IMO a lot of the other soaps could benefit from being a half hour instead of an hour

I think soaps are fine a long as networks are invested, it seems like CBS is with YR/Bold, ABC only if they don't find something to replace GH 

15 minutes ×5 streaming.  Reduce cost and hopefully provide tighter product.

3 hours ago, Spoon said:

15 minutes ×5 streaming.  Reduce cost and hopefully provide tighter product.

F*ck no, literally no one wants to watch that and I doubt it would achieve cost cutting or anything at all. 

20 hours ago, dragonflies said:

t think 5 days a week is excessive at all, I think it still works, but IMO a lot of the other soaps could benefit from being a half hour instead of an hour

Back when ATWT & GL's end dates were approaching, Stephanie Sloane of DIGEST did a Q&A with Chris Goutman & Barbara Bloom together & 5 days being too much was one thing they were alleging. Goutman specifically said that he did not see the energy in the fans any more to follow 5 days per week. Bloom said something similar along the lines of soaps evolving & that might be one change.

4 hours ago, Spoon said:

15 minutes ×5 streaming.  Reduce cost and hopefully provide tighter product.

I wish people would stop saying reduce costs. One of the biggest red flags fan lists is that five-day-a-week soaps are too expensive to work on streaming. That is a lie and I think Days is helping prove that. These streamers on the low end are spending between $25-30 million per 8-10 episode season of streaming shows. That is more than the budget for Days, which gives Peacock year round episodes, which means year round subscriptions which is very valuable for a streaming network. Then you have to consider the more expensive streaming shows which double, triple and sometimes quadruple the budget I mentioned and still only give 8-10 episodes.

If we're being honest, leading into soaps (especially the ones with name recognition) would only help the streamers. The soaps ratings are comparable to what primetime shows get with MUCH more promo and it's always been said they do well on streaming. The issue is that the soaps aren't taken seriously so nobody cares, but they're all doing well for their networks.

15 minutes would be easier for outsiders to digest, get hooked and binge.  15 minutes with the sane budget of a 60 minute show could go farther and hopefully improve production costs.  Full circle because radio soaps were 25 minutes 

On 10/23/2022 at 2:26 PM, DRW50 said:

Russell Davies basically said a decade  ago that UK soaps were going to die if they didn't make  changes (none of the  changes he suggested were followed, sadly).

What did Russell Davies suggest for soaps?

1 hour ago, Aback said:

What did Russell Davies suggest for soaps?

Unfortunately the original article seems to be gone. It was for Attitude, from 2014.

Edited October 24, 20223 yr by DRW50

1 hour ago, DRW50 said:

Unfortunately the original article seems to be gone. It was for Attitude, from 2014.

Is this it?

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-radio/tvandradioblog/2014/jul/03/soaps-in-danger-russell-t-davies-warns

Never mind. Now I can't find the blog address.

 

 

Edited October 24, 20223 yr by Tonksadora
a blog address