Are soaps in danger of extinction?

[Vee]

It's worth noting that Russell T. Davies (once and future Doctor Who showrunner, among many other huge dramas in the last ten years) has a docudrama miniseries coming up about the UK soap Crossroads, Nolly, featuring Helena Bonham Carter as its long-running star Noele Gordon. IIRC Davies cut his teeth in the business submitting spec scripts for soaps like Crossroads.

I do think soaps can easily have a future on streaming, whether you re-jigger how many days per week, whether it's arc-based, trimmed casts, whatever. Most everything on TV today still springs from soap opera, from the serial drama. GH could do well, as could the currently-defunct main ABC soap brands. The problem in America at least is none of the remaining soaps have demonstrated a true will to change their format or revolutionize their shows or their mindsets. B&B and Y&R have international money propping them up likely for years to come, but overall they all seem to prefer to simply drift towards the abyss on learned apathy and laziness, and fear of losing what they consider their only lasting, shrinking audience that might hasten that drift - aging white seniors. They don't want to thrive, they don't want to recapture a young or minority audience (even the minority audience that continues to stick by them, probably the most loyal of all), they don't want to grow or change or evolve anymore. They are simply surviving and subsisting on the allowance of networks that have nothing to fill their timeslots with. They want to keep the lights on and keep getting paid while doing as little as necessary for as long as possible. That's what it looks like, that's how it feels.

Soaps could change and grow. Here they don't want to. The UK soaps at least have a shot at recovery any time they like because there is still real money and high-level investment behind them over there, no matter how weak they are lately. You don't see Joe Biden showing up on GH like you did QEII on Eastenders shortly before her death.

Edited October 24, 2022 by Vee

[Contessa Donatella]

From the Russell Davies item:

In a new interview with Attitude, he has claimed that they might not even be around 10 years from now. And, if he's right, that would be a terrible shame.

 

OMG, 2024.

 

In the US, a soap is something you watch to see the glamorous lives of beautiful millionaires who all have evil twins and dastardly surgeons. Here, though, our soaps are about miserable grey blobs in horrible anoraks who stand around in the drizzle being depressed all the time, and we lap it up because really we're watching ourselves.

 

That & time of day & support from the royals, etc. are probably the big differences.

 

I hope Davies is wrong about soaps. But if he isn't, at least we're guaranteed one final treat. There is nothing more ridiculous than a soap's final episode. Because, as continuous dramas, soaps tend to be especially – and entertainingly – awful at endings.

 

Oh, crapola. THIS was not the article, Instead it was someone else's article about the fact that Davies has done the article in ATTITUDE. Well, there goes 15 minutes I'll never get back!

 

 

[Contessa Donatella]

Okay. I am now officially giving up my search to find the Davies article. Before I leave you, here's one more little bit about it.

https://www.digitalspy.com/soaps/a581837/russell-t-davies-on-future-of-soaps-they-may-not-exist-in-10-years/

 

The former Doctor Who writer said that he thinks soaps are in "trouble", because of the significant decrease in ratings since the 1980s.

 

Whereas EastEnders and Coronation Street attracted viewers in excess of 20 million viewers in the '80s, the average for all soaps is now below 10 million.

 

Davies told Attitude: "I think the soaps are in trouble and need to be careful. You can see a television landscape in 10 years' time where they won't exist or will be reduced."

 

He also expressed concern for the representation of the gay community on television if soaps die out, saying: "Without the soaps, gay visibility on TV will plummet."

 

He's always been about gay visibility and inclusion. Of course gays & the soaps is another way the US & the UK versions differ.

[SFK]

15 minutes without ads, sure, with ads, way too short. May as well do three 45 minute episodes a week. B&B episodes are around 18 minutes without ads (today's actually ran "long" at 19), which works perfectly well for me. Very easy to binge, and I might add that they still find ways to cram each episode with filler, recaps/flashbacks, and repetitive dialogue. 

[SteelCity]

Let's open the door for some extra Today Show/GMA where they can pay the host enough in one year to budget at least two seasons of a soap.

[Planet Soap]

I think 5 days a week for a written drama is tough from a production standpoint. When you have to write endless scripts with long often repetitive dialogue, focus becomes more about filling airtime. Even 1 day a week primetime shows are beginning to moan about producing 22 episodes a season, much less over 300. Thirty minutes maybe two or three times a week might help. Using CBS as an example: Y&R Mon-Wed, B&B Thu-Fri. 

Agreed! Some of the hosts are overpaid considering the quality of show being delivered. Today's morning shows pale in comparison to the years of Bryant Gumbell, Jane Pauley, Joan Lunden and more. 

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.

Very true. Soaps have lost the slower more raw, emotional, conversationalist manner that added depth their character interactions. Something as simple as ATWT's Bob cheating on Kim with Susan was so powerful because of the decades old deep history between the players, the emotional weight in the acting and dialogue between the characters, and the fact that the story was played by mature actors. All this even though an affair was certainly a cliché by 1990. 

Edited October 29, 2022 by ironlion

[AbcNbc247]

I think 5 days a week is fine. If anything, just make every soap 30 minutes again 

[SteelCity]

I tend to agree with this, but the writing, as well as casting would need to be MUCH tighter. Things can't afford to be drawn out "Passions" style. Say what you will about "Spyder Games" but they made the half hour work. Every episode went somewhere, and every story found a way to intersect, even slightly. This is why I say a soap like "Edge of Night" could easily come back in a 13 week, 65 episode arc format.

[Melroser]

I think B&B has the best chance to be successful on a streaming service. It's 30 mins and already has an international following. IF they kept it focused on high fashion and glamor with family drama, it would do well. NO ONE wants to watch the same triangles for decades.

May be irrelevant, but I've been streaming Dark Shadows from the beginning on tubi. I have to say, I enjoy the quick 20 min segments. I can watch one while grabbing a lunch or before I go to bed. I also find it intriguing that the show would do episodes with only 4 actors a lot of the time while focusing mainly on one story that continues along. This could be a great way for current soaps to go. Less cost for a cast and easier for viewers to follow if it stays focused on one story at a time (with maybe hints here and there of stories to come.) Shows now seem to have 10 different stories going on depending on which actors they have to use for that episode. 

[Faulkner]

These shows had a good run for 70+ years on television, and nothing lasts forever. In the same way roots music begat rock and pop, the influence of soap operas on serialized TV is undeniable, and I’d love to see more effort placed on preserving that rich history for future generations. YouTube has been a great resource in that respect, even though the video quality is often sh!tty and there are huge gaps in what’s available.

But I’m resigned to the genre being pretty much zombified. The four remaining U.S. daytime shows aren’t inspired at all beyond the energy of a few talented actors operating far below their potential due to lack of rehearsals and tepid writing. They don’t offer a lot of incentive to give up five hours a week that could be spent doing other things, unless you’re *really* invested, which obviously most people on this board are. They still pull in an OK audience, but it’s hard to compare the volume that daytime has to produce to how a primetime series operates. There’s a reason why these soaps all look like crap.

I dunno: I can’t be arsed in coming up with ways to save the remaining soaps or resurrect old ones when there’s so much other content that scratches some of the itch soaps used to scratch. (That includes watching what’s available on YouTube.)

Edited October 27, 2022 by Faulkner

[AMCOLTLLover]

Depends on the country. I don’t think soaps in Germany are that much in danger.

i don’t even think UK soaps are that much in danger. The only Soap dying in 5-10 years in the UK would be EastEnders. But no way would ITV give up on Corrie.

US Soaps have been dying since the 2000’s. But if B&B keeps up the numbers then it won’t go anywhere. That Days even made it to 2020’s is a wonder.

what really kills soap operas are those annoying stunts and serial killer storys. It’s one thing if u pulled a Phelan Story but to go on and start another one is just over the top.

GH/Days should drop their sci-fi/fantasy storys for good (even though it’s too late for Days)… No wonder they don’t gain a new audience with their horrible over the top fantasy storys. No new watcher wants to see that bs

[Contessa Donatella]

I think it is imperative that DOOL rethink their writing philosophy with some strict ideas about the sci fi, fantastical, over the top, stuff from Buried Alive through demonic possession, including Frankenstein resurrection, Mission Impossible makeover masks and then do a serious look at uber-villains & massive kidnappings & hostage takings & serial killers. At one point the show did some of this some of the time & did real soap the rest of the time. That proportion is completely out of whack now. If anyone says "revisit" it better be something like Aremid or a grand love story or 5 siblings & not anything SF/F or at all hokey!

And, I think, further, about all soaps, that the networks did something great for themselves for profits when they pushed the 60 minute expansion on the shows but that the half hour format had actually been better for the creativity & life of the shows. I don't know if hour soaps can be turned back into half hour soaps, though. I don't know if you can get there from here.

[SteelCity]

It goes back to my view that James Reilly kinda broke the show for good. DAYS picked back up and got pretty good up until the denouement of Salem Stalker. While the story had it's flaws, everything after that was just a crap tsunami, from the constant back from the deads, to "The EJ Show." The smart thing to do when DAYS moved to Peacock would have gone more back to basics with a very modern update.

[Contessa Donatella]

Yabbut, they've got 7 months of tape! What has been their salvation under NBC license fee deprivation is now a huge problem ... I'm afraid. However, more basic, or traditional story-telling with modern people & modern relationships. That could be a new Salem...

[SteelCity]

If you could mix that, with a new modern writer.